Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — ENERGY

British National Oil Corporation

Mr. John H. Osborn: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he will be in a position to tell the House about his plans for the future structure of British National Oil Corporation.

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a further statement on the future of the British National Oil Corporation.

The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Howell): I hope to make an announcement shortly.

Mr. Osborn: Will my right hon. Friend assure us that the corporation will limit its regulation powers as well as participation in drilling and production activities? Is he aware that a number of operators who have downstream interests are concerned about the power to buy back and not being able to use their own investment for their own downstream operations?

Mr. Howell: Yes, I am aware of these concerns. They were expressed to the Government as soon as they came to office, which is why we took steps to limit some of the corporation's privileges, especially the right to be on operating committees. I made clear last summer, and again in. the autumn, that it is the Government's policy to keep the necessary access to oil provided by the trading operations of the corporation. That involves keeping participation agreements and the arrangements that go with them. I am aware of my hon. Friend's concern

and I shall examine these matters carefully.

Mr. Hamilton: Will the right hon. Gentleman give a categorical assurance that in no circumstances will the Government, for doctrinaire reasons, sell off to private enterprise such a valuable national asset?

Mr. Howell: The hon. Gentleman talks of doctrine and dogma. The dogma that I should find hard to defend is that the State should be the 100 per cent. owner of an enterprise and an asset in all instances. That is a dogma that is hard to defend, especially when people are beginning to have some doubts about the efficiency of collectivist State centralised agencies.

Mr. Renton: Will my right hon. Friend take on board, contrary to the opinions expressed by he hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton), the strong enthusiasm among BNOC employees and the British public generally to invest and to have the opportunity of investing in the corporation either directly or through their pension funds? Will my right hon. Friend ensure that this is done in such a manner that the company cannot subsequently be renationalised by a Labour Government?

Mr. Howell: I recognise that ownership of assets throughout the State sector is a sentiment expressed by a number of employees. It is a healthy and timely development. It is important that it is made clear that the Labour Party dissociates itself totally from the sinister threat that it might confiscate any shares from the State sector that pass into the hands of ordinary members of the public.

Dr. Owen: As it is now clear that selling off the corporation would not even help the public sector borrowing requirement, since it would mean forgoing substantial revenues in future years and gravely damaging the United Kingdom's control over the United Kingdom continental shelf, is the right hon. Gentleman able to give the House any reason why he should even be considering the privatisation of the corporation?

Mr. Howell: The right hon. Gentleman is not correct. The security of supply and access to oil is obtained by the trading operations of the corporation.


The important thing for the 1980s is that we should have healthy enterprise in the North Sea and good security of supply. I am not convinced either that we inherited the best system for that or that narrow State control is the best answer to encouraging enterprise in the North Sea or anywhere else.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall call one more hon. Member from each side of the Chamber to ask a supplementary question. Then we must move on.

Mr. Skeet: Is my right hon. Friend able to indicate whether the trading company will operate like a crude oil broker? Is it expected that the exploration and production company will be an integrated enterprise in which people may take shares?

Mr. Howell: My hon. Friend will have to await the details of my statement.

Dr. J. Dickson Mahon: Will the Secretary of State confirm that he will take the fullest account of the views of the chairman, whom his Government appointed, and of the board—to the effect that they do not want to have BNOC split into an upstream-downstream operation, and that they see no value in public equity?

Mr. Howell: From the outset, I have been in close contact with the previous chairman, the present chairman and the board on their various views. I shall take full account of them.

Gas Gathering System

Mr. Douglas: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a further statement on the gas gathering system study for the United Kingdom continental shelf.

Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he expects to have enough evidence to make a judgment about the feasibility of a gas gathering pipeline.

Mr. Skeet: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on progress in planning the North Sea gas gathering pipeline.

The Minister of State, Department of Energy (Mr. Hamish Gray): The British

Gas Corporation and Mobil North Sea Ltd. are making good progress in their study of a new gas gathering line and expect to submit their report by early April. I am told that the results look very encouraging. The Government's judgment about the feasibility of the line will be made in the light of that report.

Mr. Douglas: In view of that answer, why has the Minister been making optimistic statements about the report all round the country—everywhere except the House of Commons? When shall we have the opportunity to debate the issue? Exactly how do the Government intend to underwrite their responsibilities for this crucial development?

Mr. Gray: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that this development will be crucial. He will be aware that my officials are in constant touch with the progress of the study in order to advise me on the national interest, as results become available. Speculation has its own fascination, but the Government's judgment will be formed in the light of the study's report. Due opportunity will be given to the House to discuss these matters after the Government have received the report, which is expected to be at about the end of this month.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I propose to call first those hon. Members whose questions are being answered.

Mr. Carlisle: Does my hon. Friend agree that we must avoid the flaring-off of excess gas during oil production in the North Sea, and that the extension of gas pipelines would not only help us achieve that but enable us to increase oil production?

Mr. Gray: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. We have already taken steps to try to reduce the amount of flaring at present taking place. The pipeline would make a considerable contribution to that. There has been identified about 12 trillion cubic feet which might be collected.

Mr. Skeet: As there is so much gas available in the North Sea, which could be gathered by a pipeline, will my hon. Friend make sure that it is made available to the chemical industry, which has been starved of it in the past? Will he also ensure that there is a Norwegian


link? There might be a very good opportunity to link the Norwegian system with our own.

Mr. Gray: The answer to my hon. Friend's first question is that it will be a matter for commercial negotiation. We have already offered the Norwegians participation, but, regrettably, it was refused. We should still like to co-operate with the Norwegians, but it must be appreciated that we cannot hold up our plans in order to accommodate them.

Mr. Eggar: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government intend, once the study is completed, to permit companies other than the British Gas Corporation to purchase the methane from the gas-gathering system?

Mr. Gray: When the report is received, the Government will give it every consideration, but I can make no further comment at this stage.

National Coal Board

Mr. Canavan: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when next he expects to meet the chairman of the National Coal Board.

Mr. Adley: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he next intends to meet the leaders of the National Coal Board.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when last he met the chairman of the National Coal Board.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. John Moore): I meet the chairman frequently.

Mr. Canavan: Will the Minister give the NCB every encouragement to go ahead with the proposed £7 million investment at Polmaise colliery in my constituency? Is he aware that that would help to ensure a more viable future for the colliery and better job prospects for my constituents? Does he agree that new investment would vindicate the fight that the miners and I put up several years ago to stop the closure of the pit, which has since risen to near the top of the league table for output per man-shift?

Mr. Moore: I know that new developments are being proposed at Polmaise. I

do not wish to go into detail now, but a scheme might be prepared for consideration by the board, which, clearly, will give serious consideration to any rational proposals for such profitable developments.

Mr. Adley: In the light of the encouraging increases in both output and productivity—including, I believe, the first real increase in deep-mined coal since 1973—which have followed the Budget of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the reductions in direct taxation, will my hon. Friend congratulate the board and the miners and make sure that the message is not lost on the Chancellor?

Mr. Moore: I am sure that all those involved in the coal industry will be aware that an industry with such long lead times, a heavily extractive industry, requires substantial capital, quality manpower and excellent management. Equally, I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor will wish to be reminded that, happily, we have seen major improvements in productivity. Clearly, one would not wish to take anything away from the degree to which the tax changes have added the incentive that has improved productivity.

Mr. Wainwright: The next time the Minister meets the chairman of the NCB will he raise with him the future of the chemical and coking plants run by the board and NCB (Coal Products) Ltd? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Manvers Main coking plant is scheduled to be closed in the not-too-distant future, that we are importing coking coal and that there is heavy unemployment in the area? Will he do something to ensure that the coking plant is kept alive or that there is another to replace it?

Mr. Moore: I cannot go into detail, but I am aware of the hon. Gentleman's particular concern. I am aware that in his constituency he has two pits—Manvers and Wath that have supplied the Manvers Main plant. I am delighted by the degree to which the production of those pits has been protected under the Central Electricity Generating Board arrangements. The improved washing facilities at Manvers will help that. But the details are a matter for decision within the NCB.

Mr. John H. Osborn: Does my hon. Friend visualise that investment will lead to an expansion of output from British mines? How much of any increase will be liquified and used for petroleum and liquid fossil fuel products?

Mr. Moore: There is a £611 million-plus investment in the coal industry's capital this year, rising to more than £800 million in 1980–81. That is expected to be a profitable investment; it would not have been approved otherwise.

Mr. Hardy: Does the Minister recognise that there is a third pit involved in the Manvers Main plant—namely, Kilnhurst, in my constituency? The concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright) is entirely justified. After discussions with the chairman of the NCB, will the Government approach the European Community to try to ensure that, with particular regard to the coal industry, a much more sensible energy policy is pursued?

Mr. Moore: I recognise the hon. Gentleman's position. I know about Kilnhurst. The added capacity at Avenue at Chesterfield coke works is helping, along with the CEGB extra take. I hope that all hon. Members will join me in welcoming the degree to which the NCB has adjusted to a radical reduction in demand by one of the major clients of the coal industry for its products.

Mr. Eadie: Does the Minister agree that there is a great need for his Department continually to reaffirm its continued investment in the mining industry, for reasons that some of his hon. Friends have outlined this afternoon? As the hon. Gentleman has reconvened the working party on research and development in coal, will he outline the kind of programme that he proposes it should follow? Does he intend to publish its findings?

Mr. Moore: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have only recently reconvened. There has been one meeting of the working party under my chairmanship. We have a long programme planned. I shall give details in a written answer if the hon. Gentleman wishes. I should like us to get further into our work before we talk about publication of the findings. I imagine that that would

be in the interests of the House. Perhaps I may wait on that until we are a little further into the programme.

Energy Output and Demand

Mr. Chapman: asked the Secretary of State for Energy by how much the total output of energy increased in the last five years for which figures are available; and what is his latest estimate of the increase or decrease of energy demand to 1985.

Mr. David Howell: United Kingdom indigenous energy production totalled 328 million tonnes of coal equivalent in 1979, an increase of some 85 per cent. on 1974. Demand for primary fuel over the next five years will depend on a number of economic factors. On the assumptions of "Energy Projections 1979", demand in 1985 would be some 3 to 7 per cent. above present levels.

Mr. Chapman: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that studied reply. Although I recognise that our gas and oil resources are finite and that known alternative sources of energy could not make more than a marginal impact on the supply figures, will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is essential for us to expand our coal and nuclear power industries even if energy conservation is much more of a reality in the next five years than it has been in the past five?

Mr. Howell: My answer to my hon. Friend, again, is "Yes". We need nuclear power expansion, we need coal industry expansion, and we need a very substantial gain from increased energy efficiency. The projections which I referred to earlier imply, by the year 2,000 a 20 per cent. gain in energy efficiency through energy conservation.

Dr. Owen: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that there has been a considerable fall-off in electricity demand? Will he let the House know the implications of that for the existing AGR programme at Heysham and Torness and also for the future nuclear power programme? Can he confirm that there will be no question of an increase in electricity price rewarding electricity consumers for a fall in demand?

Mr. Howell: I can confirm that recently the electricity supply industry reduced somewhat its forecasts of sales in


1986–87. Dealing with the right hon. Gentleman's last point, I share the view that if there are increasing costs arising from lower sales, that is not by any means automatically a reason for passing on all the costs to the consumer. The implications for the overall capital and current programmes of the electricity supply industry are being looked at in the light of the new forecasts.

Mr. Emery: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that no new capital programme instituted at the moment would have any relevance within that lead time of five years? Therefore, is my right hon. Friend confident that the industry has enough capacity to be able to meet that band of a 3 to 7 per cent. increase?

Mr. Howell: I am not clear what my hon. Friend's point is.

Mr. Emery: In his original answer, my right hon. Friend suggested that the increase over that period would range from 3 to 7 per cent. Has the industry the capability of being able to meet that? If it has not now, it never will.

Mr. Howell: Perhaps my hon. Friend did not hear my original reply, which was that the electricity supply industry was now forecasting somewhat lower electricity sales. If my hon. Friend is asking whether the industry has capacity to meet these needs, the answer is that, with its present capital and current programmes, it believes that it will be able to meet all the needs upon it.

Mr. Palmer: With reference to the right hon. Gentleman's statement about the new electricity demand figures, will he say whether the Government's desire to expand the nuclear power programme, with which I do not disagree, will triumph over the Government's equally strong desire to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement?

Mr. Howell: The case for nuclear power as a component of future electricity supply stands on the merits which have been put forward for it, which are concerned with its economic cost and the desirability of a larger nuclear electricity generating capacity in the future. In the meantime, it is correct to say that this industry has to meet its financial targets and keep within its cash limits. These two problems have to be reconciled.

Mr. Rost: How does the Government's forecast of electricity demand differ from the CEGB's latest downward revision? Was not my right hon. Friend made aware of this downward revision? Why is it happening, and what will be the impact on the nuclear power programme?

Mr. Howell: The electricity supply industry has come forward with these reduced sales forecasts. My Department makes energy projections from time to time. When such proposals come forward from the electricity supply industry, they are, of course, examined in my Department and have an effect on energy projections. Part of the sales forecasts relates to the very short term and to the short-term fall in demand because of warmer weather, so that would not really fit in with the longer-term problem of energy projections. The Government remain fully committed to the nuclear programme which I outlined before Christmas. That is not affected by the short-term matters that we are discussing now.

Mr. Joseph Dean: Would the Secretary of State care to comment on press reports this weekend of a possible cut in the future provision not only of nuclear power stations but of conventional ones? Is he aware of the disastrous effect that this would have on our base industries manufacturing power plant to supply both the home market and its export potential? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the disastrous consequences that this would have for unemployment?

Mr. Howell: I am aware of the consequences for the nuclear power ordering programme and the interests of our industry and jobs. But I cannot comment on newspaper speculation of the kind that the hon. Gentleman mentions.

Mr. Dover: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the industrial need for energy in West Lancashire has reduced markedly over the last five years? Is that a picture which is reflected nationwide, and is my right hon. Friend concerned about it?

Mr. Howell: Projections of energy demand are under constant review in my Department. We have to take a view of the likely growth of energy demand in the future. The investment necessary to meet that demand, whether nuclear, coal, oil, gas or conservation, is a matter for constant reassessment and a flexible


approach. The views being taken about future growth of demand obviously are a very important component in trying to get a balanced and flexible energy policy in the future.

Mr. Ashton: The constant reassessments taking place must be based on some estimate of the unemployment figure. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that the unemployment figure for 1985–86 will be well above 2 million, because that is what is indicated by the assessment of the drop in demand that he has given?

Mr. Howell: The hon. Gentleman is a little confused. We are concerned with the growth in demand for different forms of power. That depends on the relationship between the growth in demand for, say, electricity, and the growth of output and other energy coefficients. If, as we go along, increasing efficiency is gained in the use of energy, that in itself will have a depressing effect on the rate of growth in the demand for energy. It is a separate question from the one with which the hon. Gentleman is concerned.

Pressure Water Reactor

Mr. John Evans: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he is satisfied with the rate of progress of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate's evaluation of the pressure water reactor.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Norman Lamont): Yes, Sir.

Mr. Evans: Will the Minister concede that, even if the inspectorate gives the PWR a clean bill of health, that will not allay the widespread public concern about the PWR? Does he accept that the decision to build a PWR will be a political one and that political decisions should be settled by debates and votes in this House?

Mr. Lamont: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to cast aspersions on the integrity and expertise of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. It would not be a political decision. We have always said that a decision to build a PWR would be subject to the full safety clearance, that there would be an inquiry, and that that clearance would have to be given by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Will my hon. Friend confirm in the clearest possible

terms that, to allay public concern about this matter, the Government have made it clear all along that after the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has considered the matter there will be a full and extensive public inquiry?

Mr. Lamont: That is what I have just said to the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Evans).

Mr. Hooley: In the light of the serious understaffing of the NII, is the Minister satisfied that it can carry out all its existing very extensive duties and make the complex evaluations necessary of the PWR?

Mr. Lamont: Yes, I am so satisfied. The shortfall in the NII complement is being looked at urgently. There is a pay increase which has taken effect from 1 January and is part of the normal review of pay. There will be another review on 1 April. We take the staffing problems extremely seriously. But we are confident that the work on the PWR can go ahead.

Nuclear Energy Generation

Mr. Jessel: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what information he has about public attitudes to the generation of nuclear energy.

Mr. Norman Lamont: I believe that there is wide recognition of the need for nuclear power.

Mr. Jessel: Will the Minister look out for the result of this month's referendum on nuclear energy in Sweden, where it has become a major political question which has been widely debated, so that we can all get an idea of how far the mentality of protest is truly representative of an informed public opinion?

Mr. Lamont: We shall certainly follow the results of the referendum in Sweden. None of the options in Sweden gives a clear go-ahead for nuclear power. The one which is most favourable for nuclear power allows it to go ahead only after the completion of those reactors now under construction or now in use. However, the referendum will certainly give us some guide to public opinion elsewhere.

Mr. Benn: Is the Minister aware that the Government are now in danger of


losing public confidence in their nuclear energy proposals, first because they have gone for a PWR which is widely regarded as being inherently unsafe from a design point of view, something confirmed by Sir Alan Cottrell, the Government's former chief scientist; secondly, because there are serious difficulties in the PWRs used in France: and thirdly, because, when the previous Government were in office the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate made it clear to me that the Westinghouse PWR would not be acceptable and that major and extensive modifications would be required? Is he aware that unless the Government are candid with the public and do not try to rush through a programme without a debate and decision in the House, they will lose the confidence of the British people in this component of our energy policy?

Mr. Lamont: If the Government are in any danger of losing public confidence in this dispute, it will be not least because the right hon. Gentleman himself has done so much to stir up public opinion and to give rise to groundless fears. It is a complete travesty to say that the Government are not being candid and open, when this Government have published so much more documentation than the right hon. Gentleman's Administration published. Furthermore, the right hon. Gentleman knows that the NII has said that, even after the Three Mile Island incident, there is no reason why a PWR should not be designed to satisfy the most stringent security requirements. Fourth, I am sure that the NII, in its safety evaluations, will take into account Sir Alan Cottrell's views. Sir Alan himself has had a consultation with the NII and was brought up to date on some points of which he might not have been aware. The right hon. Gentleman will no doubt be glad to learn, as I am, that Sir Alan has confidence that no dangerous cracks in PWR pressure vessels will escape detection if the recommendations of the Marshall group on pressure vessel integrity are carried out.

Mr. Beith: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that serious reservations about the scale of the Government's nuclear power commitment are now widespread, and nowhere more so than in areas such as Northumberland, which are scheduled for both power stations and nuclear waste disposal? Should he not recognise that,

whatever the view of those who do not have proposals for such developments on their doorstep, the picture is very different among those threatened with them?

Mr. Lamont: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to misrepresent the scale of the Government's nuclear programme, because this Government's nuclear programme is much less than that planned in other European countries—much less than in France and Germany and much less than the 40 gigawatts of nuclear power foreseen in the Green Paper of the previous Secretary of State for Energy.

Mr. Dorrell: Although I welcome the Government's continued and firm commitment to the nuclear programme, does the Minister agree that some of the public opposition that has been stirred up by statements such as those that we have just heard can be allayed by a recognition of the amount of money that the Government are continuing to put into research into benevolent sources of energy as alternatives to the hydrocarbons? Does he accept that that is an important part of a programme to get wider recognition of the need for nuclear power? Are the Government still committed to maintaining their programme of research into alternative sources of energy?

Mr. Lamont: Yes, the Government are committed to continuing with research into the alternatives. I am sure that my hon. Friend knows that the energy projections of the Department include a contribution from those sources of energy in the year 2000.

Fuel Costs

Mr. Hal Miller: asked the Secretary of State for Energy by how much the price per therm for coal, gas, nuclear-generated electricity and petrol has risen in the last 10 years.

Mr. David Howell: Between mid-January 1970 and mid-January 1980 the prices of coal, gas, electricity and petrol purchased by the domestic sector increased by 301 per cent., 124 per cent., 303 per cent. and 278 per cent. respectively. The increases are based on information used in the compilation of the general index of retail prices.
Information on consumer prices of electricity generated specifically by nuclear power stations is not available as all electricity is supplied to the national grid.

Mr. Miller: On the basis of those figures, does my right hon. Friend agree that the price of petrol has not risen in line with other fuel prices since 1970?

Mr. Howell: I think that my figures show the comparative movements over the 10 years. I think that I said that the price of petrol had risen by 278 per cent., which is lower than the prices that I gave for coal and electricity. That is what the figures confirm.

Mr. Ashton: What sort of pricing policy is it that raises the price of gas because the customers are using too much, cuts insulation grants in half after talking of a policy of conservation and then wants to increase the price of electricity because the customers are not using enough?

Mr. Howell: The hon. Member's last statement is inaccurate, as I made clear in an earlier answer, so I hope that he will withdraw it. As for insulation, I think that he is confusing the amount of Government activity and expenditure on conservation with the amount of conservation achieved. The Government take the view that conservation programmes should be judged by results, not by the amount of activity and the number of programmes that politicians can dream up to spend taxpayers' money.

Mr. Forman: In the light of his earlier answer about the movement of prices, does my right hon. Friend agree that it would help the Government's conservation policy if this were reflected in the real price movements, particularly for petrol? Can he advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer in that direction before the forthcoming Budget?

Mr. Howell: Those are matters for my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor. Perhaps my hon. Friend would like to direct his observations on that aspect, which concerns tax, to the Chancellor.

Nationalised Fuel Industries (Chairman)

Mr. Winnick: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he expects to meet

the chairman of the nationalised fuel industries.

Mr. David Howell: I meet the chairman from time to time to discuss matters of common interest.

Mr. Winnick: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise the hardship that will be caused to many people as a result or the revised electricity price increases? Is it not time that the Government gave information—either from the right hon. Gentleman himself or from the Secretary of State for Social Services—about a proper national scheme that would give genuine assistance to those on low incomes in protecting themselves against the never-ending increases in gas and electricity prices?

Mr. Howell: My right hon. Friend and I have made it clear that we intend to bring forward extra help for those in need who are faced with fuel hardship. It is common ground that it makes sense to move towards economic pricing for fuel in an energy-hungry world. That is a sane energy policy. Nevertheless, the needs of those in hardship must be met. We have made one move in that direction and have said that we intend to bring forward extra help. That is a sensible policy, recognised by the nationalised industries consumer councils as well and is a great improvement on the situation we found when we came to office, when there was no provision at all to help those in fuel hardship.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Will my right hon. Friend make a point of meeting Mr. Glyn England very soon and point out to him that it would be unfortunate if, because of temporary difficulties over its cash limits, the CEGB was to postpone the AGR programme in a way which might threaten the dispersal of design and production teams?

Mr. Howell: The detailed capital and current cost programmes of the CEGB and the whole electricity industry are a matter for the chairman concerned, whom I meet from time to time. However, no doubt my hon. Friend's comments will be noted. The task of the electricity supply industry is to meet the financial targets that it has been set.

Mr. Stoddart: When the right hon. Gentleman meets the chairman of the


CEGB, will he discuss with him the need for a 28 per cent. planned margin rather than an 18 per cent. margin, such as the industry was running in the 1960s, and the effect that that would have on a future programme? Will he also discuss with him smaller power stations which can be used with combined heat and power installations?

Mr. Howell: The 28 per cent., which I think is the long-term planning margin of the electricity supply industry, is of course discussed with the chairman of the boards of the industry, so the answer is that I do discuss these things. However, it has to be borne in mind that the price which is undoubtedly paid for maintaining a high planning margin is the price which is matched by the need to provide secure supplies at peak times on cold days. People expect from the industry regular supplies even at periods of peak demand and that inevitably involves large margins.

Mr. Alan Clark: Does my hon. Friend recognise that some of us are disturbed at this concept he calls fuel hardship? Hardship is hardship and it is the responsibility of the DHSS to deal with it. If every Department has to make provision for particular hardships arising out of its affairs will we not be in even greater difficulties with public spending than we are at the moment?

Mr. Howell: I have indicated that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services who has been giving attention to this question and that it is through social programmes that hardship of all kinds should be met, particularly hardship that arises from violent and sudden increases in something as basic as fuel costs.

Dr. Owen: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware of the inconsistencies in his reply to the question on the fall in electricity demand? On the one hand he gave an assurance that he does not wish to see an increase in the price of electricity yet on the other he gave an assurance to his hon. Friends that he wishes to see the AGR programme go forward and he wishes to give confidence to our nuclear industry? Yet he constantly reiterates that cash limits must be maintained. Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept that this is quite inconsistent and that

he must relax the cash limits under which the electricity industry currently operates?

Mr. Howell: No, I do not accept that, nor do I accept that the right hon. Gentleman is correctly repeating what I said earlier. Nor do I accept that I said that all increases in costs should automatically be passed on in prices. There must be a vigorous search for economies to meet part of the rise in costs. It may be that some rises have to be passed on but I do not accept the doctrine that it is simply a question of passing on all increases in costs in increased prices to the consumer.

Gas Corporation (Liability)

Mr. Palmer: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will introduce legislation to impose on the Gas Corporation an absolute liability in respect of natural gas explosions causing death or injury to persons and damage to property.

Mr. Norman Lamont: I have no present plans to do so.

Mr. Palmer: Has the hon. Gentleman studied the recent report of the British Safety Council on gas explosions which is highly critical of the somewhat careless way in which the Gas Corporation goes about its business? The report is also critical of the way in which the Gas Corporation treats those who are the unfortunate victims of these explosions. Does the hon. Gentleman think that imposing an absolute liability on the Corporation is a necessary discipline?

Mr. Lamont: I am aware of the report of the British Safety Council and I am bound to say that it contains a number of factual errors and misleading statements. It fails to mention a number of relevant factors including the fact that gas engineers from the Department already carry out independent investigations into gas explosions where they consider that desirable. I should also point out that about two-thirds of all gas explosions occur on the customer side of the meter and two-thirds of that number are the result of deliberate malpractice. It is, therefore, difficult to impose an absolute liability on the Gas Corporation. I can see no reason why a liability should be imposed on the corporation which is different to the liability imposed on other industries.

North Sea Oil (Pricing)

Mr. Michael Spicer: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on the Government's policy for the pricing of North Sea oil.

Mr. Gray: Producing companies have a right to the market price for their North Sea oil. The Government have no powers to control those prices but, in the national interest, they must on occasion urge companies to be timely and moderate with price increases.

Mr. Spicer: Will my hon. Friend confirm that there is no question of the Government influencing any producing company to sell oil at prices below world market prices?

Mr. Gray: I can confirm that that is not the Government's intention. We have always urged companies to follow the price rather than to lead it. The prices of North Sea crude is relative to prices being obtained in Algeria, Libya, and such countries.

Mr. Douglas: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the enormous increase in the price of oil—now selling at about 34 dollars a barrel—has resulted in considerable windfall revenues to the Exchequer and to the oil companies? What are his proposals for advising the Chancellor of the Exchequer to raise PRT in the forthcoming Budget?

Mr. Gray: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman tables a question to the Treasury on that subject.

Mr. Emery: Does my hon. Friend agree that world oil prices are now set by the largest oligopoly that we have ever seen—namely OPEC—and that this is not a freely negotiated world price but a price established by those nations?

Mr. Gray: My hon. Friend is correct. In relation to OPEC we are subject principally to the rates of oil price in the countries that produce crude similar to that produced in the North Sea. It is interesting that even Saudi Arabia, which produces a much heavier crude, has not been able to control world oil prices. Sometimes people suggest that we should be able to control them but our production is only one-fifth of the production of Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Benn: Quite apart from the case for taxing the oil profits, which are now astronomical as a result of factors for which the oil companies have contributed nothing—namely OPEC price increases—does not the fact that North Sea oil can now be sold at roughly five times its cost of production indicate that the Government have a clear duty to retain the ownership of the oil? That would mean that 100 per cent. of that excess profit accrues to the British people through the Treasury. Does not the increase in the OPEC oil price make it absolutely vital that every barrel of oil owned by BNOC is retained by the Government since it is an asset that is appreciating more rapidly than any other asset in cur reserves?

Mr. Gray: The right hon. Gentleman always had difficulty in separating State ownership from British ownership. The two are not necessarily the same. As far as future investment in North Sea oil is concerned, the Government have tried to create a climate which will encourage future investment there and this has been achieved. Already there are substantial signs to that effect.

European Community (Ministerial Meetings)

Mr. Dykes: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what further discussions he plans to hold in the near future with his EEC opposite numbers on the development of a comprehensive Community energy policy.

Mr. Hannam: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when next he expects to meet the EEC Council of Energy Ministers.

Mr. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he expects to meet his European Economic Community counterparts.

Mr. David Howell: The Council of EEC Energy Ministers meets regularly to review and develop the Community's Energy policy. This process will continue at the next meeting of the Energy Council which I expect to be arranged during the next few weeks.

Mr. Dykes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the only EEC oil-producing country, we have a splendid opportunity


to propose a positive Community energy policy? Does he accept that this would involve various complicated aspects, but would include the possibility of using EEC funds for energy products, new energy developments and even nuclear energy in the long term, in response to our positive proposals to create a comprehensive policy which will help non-oil countries in the EEC and which will also establish our authority in that sphere?

Mr. Howell: The Government are always ready to consider constructive projects for an EEC energy policy. Britain is Europe's largest energy producer and one of Europe's leading energy investors. We already make a major contribution through our existing national programmes to the development of the EEC energy resource. Perhaps more recognition of what we are already doing should be given by other EEC countries.

Mr. Hannam: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that we supply a large amount of oil to Europe and that it amounts to about 30 per cent. of our total oil exports?

Mr. Howell: That is correct.

Mr. Knox: Does my right hon. Friend expect that at the next meeting of the Council of Ministers there will be a discussion about an expansion of the Community programme into alternative sources of energy? Does he agree that that is rather urgent?

Mr. Howell: It is important. A number of national and EEC programmes are being pursued. I do not yet know whether they will appear on the agenda. If they do, we shall approach them constructively.

Mr. McNamara: Will the right hon. Gentleman take cautionary note of the lack of success of the common fisheries policy? Does he agree that if we supply the same amount of oil as we supplied fish and have the same degree of success we shall be closing down our oilfields as fast as our fishing ports?

Mr. Howell: The hon. Gentleman's emphasis on caution is wise.

Oral Answers to Questions — PALACE OF WESTMINSTER

Accommodation

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will consider the establishment of a Select Committee to inquire specifically into the allocation and availability of accommodation for hon. Members and others in the Palace of Westminster.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): No, Sir. These matters are already dealt with by the Services Committee and I do not think that it would be helpful to set up a special committee of the kind that the hon. Member proposes.

Mr. Hamilton: Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept that there has not been an updated investigation of this matter since that carried out by Dick Stokes in the early 1950s? Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept that the House of Lords has an undue proportion of the accommodation available in the Houses of Parliament and that that must be put right? The accommodation problem of hon. Members is quite intolerable and getting steadily worse.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The Palace of Westminster houses a hi-cameral legislature. We must accept that fact. I am afraid that the only long-term and satisfactory solution to the problems of accommodation of hon. Members is to have a new building. However, in the present financial circumstances I am afraid that we are unlikely to make rapid progress in that direction.

Mr. Dykes: Is my right hon. Friend able to say what is the latest position on the proposal to give proper, limited and sensible access to European Members? This saga is already beginning to make "The Mousetrap" look like a short run.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: This matter has been considered by the Services Committee which will publish its report on Thursday.

Mr. Sheerman: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider making a tour of inspection of hon. Members' accommodation in the Palace to inform himself of


the deplorable condition in which his colleagues have to work? Perhaps some of his colleagues on the Government Front Bench do not work in such conditions and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman does not realise quite how bad things are.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I did that when I was first appointed Leader of the House. Long before I was appointed to that exalted position I was a Back Bencher and experienced at first hand the difficulties now being experienced by other hon. Members.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: Since the Leader of the House has turned down the idea of a Select Committee inquiry and my idea of having an independent, external inquiry by a company outside the House of Commons, what is he planning to do to resolve our difficulties? Does he understand that when the Division Bell rings, hon. Members from both sides sometimes have to sprint to the House to vote? Is that fair?

Mr. Alan Clark: It will do the hon. Member good.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I do not know whether it is fair but certainly it is not desirable. I do not believe that we shall make progress by conducting more inquiries into a situation the basic details of which are well known.

Mr. William Hamilton: Take the accommodation from along the Corridor.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: No. This is a bicameral legislature. Members of the other place have their rights and we must respect them. The question of individual hon. Members' accommodation is dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Stradling Thomas) and the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Harrison). My experience is that they do their best to help hon. Members in all possible ways. I congratulate them on their work.

Facilities

Mr. Spearing: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement concerning facilities that may be granted in the Palace of Westminster to categories of persons who are not hon. Members of Parliament to assist them in that office.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Facilities are granted only to people whose functions have a direct connection with the work of the House or its Members.

Mr. Spearing: I am grateful for that statement of principle. Can the Leader of the House assure us that that admirable principle will not be extended in the report which is to be published on Thursday? If, by chance, it is, does he agree that that will represent a constitutional break, even if the details appear to be slight?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I cannot anticipate the publication of the report of the Services Committee. It would be improper for me so to do. Knowing the hon. Member's keen interest in these matters I chose my words carefully. The words were particularly carefully chosen in view of who was asking the question.

GOVERNMENT PUBLICITY SERVICES

Mr. Robert Atkins: asked the Paymaster General if he is satisfied with the present co-ordination of Government publicity services.

The Paymaster General (Mr. Angus Maude): Yes, Sir.

Mr. Atkins: Does my right hon. Friend agree that recent events, such as the ballot by the steel workers, indicate that the Government's policies are beginning to get through to the public? Does he agree that there is a new air of realism among the public as a whole?

Mr. Maude: I certainly agree that there is a new air of realism in the country. Events in recent weeks, including the decisions by the South Wales miners, the BL workers and the workers in the private steel industry, as well as yesterday's decision by those who voted in the British Steel Corporation ballot, are indications of greater realism on the shop floor.

Mr. Heller: Has the right hon. Gentleman read reports in the Financial Times of bleating about communications in Conservative Party committees? Is it not true that whenever Governments get into trouble—and all Governments seem to get into trouble at certain stages—all


Back Benchers bleat that communications are not right?

Mr. Maude: Yes, Sir. Of course it is true that there are always people who think that it is within the power of those who deal with communications to make people like temporary sacrifices which are necessary but not likeable.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is necessary for the Prime Minister to be able to explain to the country the effects of her policies in non-partisan terms? What convention exists to allow a Prime Minister to have a fireside chat with the nation without inviting the right to reply from the Leader of the Opposition, who would simply use such an occasion to make party political points?

Mr. Maude: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has several opportunities, of which she will no doubt take advantage, to speak to the people. A leader of a party always has the vehicle of a party political broadcast.

Mr. James Lamond: Since the Paymaster General is so satisfied with his work of publicising the Tory Party's policy can he tell us that he is eagerly looking forward to an increase in the Tory majority at Southend on Thursday?

Mr. Maude: My experience is that it is always unwise to forecast by-election results. In particular, it is unwise to forecast that Government majorities will fall as much as Opposition Members like to believe.

PRESS (MEETINGS)

Mr. Winnick: asked the Paymaster General when he expects next to meet representatives of the press.

Mr. Maude: I frequently meet individual members of the press at their own request. These are generally arranged at short notice. I have no immediate engagements in my diary.

Mr. Winnick: If the right hon. Gentleman does not do more to improve the Government's image—and we realise the obvious difficulties in that task—is it not possible that he will be publicly rebuked and humiliated by the Prime Minister, or simply sacked?

Mr. Maude: That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman should recognise that it is not Governments' images that matter but whether their policies will work. I am entirely confident that the policies of this Government will work.

Mr. Adley: Has my right hon. Friend had any discussions with the BBC or the ITA about the suggestion that they should be asked to postpone or ban broadcasting the Olympic Games? Does he recognise that if any such proposal were made it would set a dangerous precedent? Can he, therefore, give the House an assurance that no such action is contemplated by the Government?

Mr. Maude: No, Sir. That would be a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

Mr. David Steel: When the right hon. Gentleman next meets representatives of the press will be explain his extraordinary decree that no Ministers will be allowed to participate in television or radio broadcasts with members of other parties to discuss their policies? Is he so lacking in confidence in his colleagues that they may appear only in prepackaged form and may not be open to cross-examination?

Mr. Maude: The right hon. Gentleman is, as so often, ill-informed. I have, of course, never made any such decree, nor am I authorised to do so. It has been the practice of successive Governments to give giudance to Ministers on their participation in television and radio programmes. I have written to my colleagues recently merely to clarify the existing guidelines.

SECOND ADJOURNMENT DEBATES

Mr. Speaker: On Thursday last the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) raised a point of order with me about second Adjournment debates. I said that. I would make a brief statement when I had looked at the matter again. I have decided that the policy of firstcome-first-served is the only fair one for the House to pursue, but in order to avoid any difficulties, the first hon. Member whose name comes in, even if at that point he has not been able to get a


Minister to be ready to reply, will still be first if he secures the agreement of a Minister in the course of the day before it is time for the second debate to take place.

Mr. Foot: Thank you for the ruling that you have given, Mr. Speaker. I believe that it will greatly assist the House and will ensure that there will be no recurrence of what happened last week. I think that that is a guarantee to Back Benchers in all parts of the House, and we are most grateful to you for it.

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. David Mitchell): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. A problem arises of which I think the House should be aware. If an hon. Member seeks to raise a second Adjournment debate on what one might call a hybrid subject—that is to say, small businesses and hotels, small businesses and agriculture, or small businesses and education—it presents a certain amount of difficulty for Ministers in discovering to which aspect they are meant to reply.

Mr. Speaker: Under the ruling that I have just given Ministers will probably have all day to decide which one of them is to reply.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made and Question proposed,
That, at this day's sitting, upon the first motion in the name of Mr. Secretary Pym being made, Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question upon that motion and upon the remaining Questions which, under Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply), he is required to put at Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Cope.]

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I do not wish to detain the House for many minutes, but it should be made well aware of the nature of the business motion. I understand its purpose to be to enable all outstanding Votes to be taken on the nod at 7 o'clock. As I further understand it, the essential element of the Vote to be taken is the Spring Supplementary Estimate, amounting to no less than £835 million of additional public expenditure, the equivalent of the entire public sector borrowing requirement of only a few years back.
The House should pause for a moment before it approves a business motion that

is designed to ensure that there is no opportunity to discuss this massive increase in public expenditure.
I make no criticism of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House because it was the House that decided, in its wisdom or otherwise, that this procedure should be followed and that Votes of this kind should be taken on the nod. It is doubly a matter for concern on this occasion because wrapped up within the total Spring Supplementary Estimate of £835 million is provision for £70 million to be paid to two Departments—the Scottish Office and the Ministry of Defence—to compensate them for overspending their current cash limits.
At a time when cash limits are to play a major part—rightly so—in the control of public expenditure the House should pause before approving, without a moment's discussion or explanation, a motion that is designed to compensate those two Departments for what, on the face of it, would appear to be somewhat lax housekeeping, to put it mildly.
In one case—admittedly, it is not the most important in financial terms—under the Scottish Office Vote for law and order, Class IX, Vote 8, the House approved a cash limit increase less than a month ago. It is now being asked to provide another £2 million because, apparently, the Scottish Office is not even capable of keeping within that cash limit approved a month ago. That seems hard to defend.
The other items which deeply concern me in the matter of cash limits are that under Class I, Vote 1, on the pay of the Armed Forces and civilian employees of the Ministry of Defence, the cash limit is up by £10 million over and above the cash limit approved by the House; the amount under Class I, Vote 2 on defence procurement, is up by £35 million; under Class I, Vote 4, on defence accommodation and services, the sum is up by £19 million; and in respect of the Scottish Office under Class VI, Vote 1, dealing with Scottish roads, the sum is up by £4·5 million. All those sums are over and above the cash limits approved by the House.
There is one other case that I hesitate to mention, and that is the Queen's Remembrancer, who has apparently managed to belie his name by overspending his cash limit by £87,000. However,


I think that we may pass that over in a decent silence. The rest of that £70 million should be a matter of real concern to the House if it believes that we have a duty to scrutinise and to try to control public expenditure on behalf of our constituents.
When I raised these matters during questions on the Business Statement last week my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House very fairly pointed out that it was open to the Opposition to make the Votes the subject of a debate today. They have not done so. It would be out of character for a party that, over so many years, has shown almost a contempt for the principles of good housekeeping now to concern itself with the overspending of cash limits. It has not done so, and the House should therefore be alerted to the fact that should we agree to this motion no opportunity will arise to discuss what we are being asked to approve in the name of our constituents.
My right hon. Friend also pointed out quite fairly that it would be in order to debate these matters in the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill, on Wednesday. However, I believe, although I am open to correction by my right hon. Friend, that it would not be practicable or permissible under the rules of order for an hon. Member to seek to debate on that Bill five separate Votes that are in excess of cash limits and that relates to two different Departments. Furthermore—and this is even more fundamental—if the House approves these Votes at 7 o'clock tonight the expenditure will already have been approved and on Wednesday we should be arguing about the matter after the horse had bolted.
I said at the outset that I made no criticism of my right hon. and hon. Friends on the manner in which these matters are placed before the House, since this was the way in which the House decided that they should be dealt with, but in my view it is high time that the Procedure Committee looked into these matters again. When we are supposed to be observing stringent control of public expenditure it is not good enough for the House to be asked to approve on the nod Supplementary Estimates running into hundreds—and shortly, no doubt, thousands—of millions of pounds.
I shall not myself seek to divide the House against the motion, since I appre-

ciate that it is for the convenience of the House today that it be approved so that the debate may proceed between 7 and 11.30 o'clock this evening, but I consider that in these matters we must have regard also to the convenience and interests of those who sent us here, and the procedure that Parliament has here adopted does not seem to me adequately to reflect the concern that we should have for those whom we represent in the House and who pay the taxes to sustain public expenditure.

Mr. English: I support the hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) in the basis of what he has said, although he perhaps forgets that some of us who are now on the Opposition Benches opposed the way in which these Estimates went through on the nod when our own party was in government. I think that he forgot that I, at least, could claim to be more consistent than he in that respect. However, I support him in the sense that he has a point. We must oppose the motion, because our procedures are quite archaic in this respect.
The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has said that later this week we shall have an opportunity to debate this issue on the Consolidated Fund Bill. He was, of course, quite correct. What he did not say was that we should have no opportunity to vote on it. In other words, he was giving the classic Government answer—"So long as you let us overspend, we do not mind how much you talk about it. We do not mind what you say, but you must never vote against it".
We are not allowed to propose expenditure—under the traditions of the British constitution only the Government may propose an increase in expenditure—but under the basic traditions of our constitution we are, in theory, allowed to vote against it.
What will happen in practice? The Consolidated Fund Bill, as it is called, will be debated all night on various issues, raised by various hon. Members, but not one of them will be allowed to come to a vote. The Committee stage will follow, and the only legitimate amendment that may be moved is one to delete the word "may"—that the Government may spend the money. In no circumstances may one move an amendment relating even to


a matter discussed, or enabling the House to vote upon a single pound of expenditure.
The supposed reason for that is that Supply resolutions such as those on the Order Paper today will have already passed the House, but by a tradition now over a century old Supply days are days when the Opposition Front Bench chooses the subject of debate. The hon. Gentleman did not say that. He said "the Opposition", but it is the Opposition Front Bench—his former Front Bench, or my present Front Bench—that chooses the subject of debate, and not the Opposition as such.
Since we give press conferences about these things, I see no reason for not saying that this matter was raised in the private meeting of my party. The Opposition Front Bench chooses the subject for debate. The subjects chosen are very reasonable ones, but the result is that hardly ever does the Opposition Front Bench choose such a subject as deleting £10 million, or whatever it may be. The subjects chosen by every Front Bench, of whichever party, are much more politically sexy, much more newsworthy and more headline-raising.
The result is that under our present procedure no Supply resolution is ever debated. It can be voted upon, under the procedure initiated by the hon. Member for Knutsford, but it cannot be discussed. Someone has to put down an objection even in order to have a vote, and that is on the Order Paper today as a result of what has been done by the hon. Gentleman. Whether the hon. Gentleman is here or not is irrelevant. He knows that it can be done by others on his behalf if he initiates the procedure.
There appears on the Order Paper notice of objection by the hon. Member for Knutsford. That enables us to vote later this day. But the business motion precludes us from having any discussion on these Estimates. What is needed, as the hon. Member said, is the setting up of the Procedure Committee again to consider these matters. Last Session the Procedure Committee dealt with the non-financial aspects of House procedure. It intended to go on to the financial aspects, and, among other things, the last one suggested that the Select Committees that

we have now set up should consider the Estimates.
How can the Select Committees consider these Estimates? They were put to the Committees only about 10 days ago. What a fine length of time for Committees of the House to consider them. I doubt that the Estimates have yet been circulated to some of the Committees. I think that they have been circulated to a few, but there has hardly been time for anyone to consider these matters.
Plainly, we must initiate a proper procedure in Committee and on the Floor of the House for consideration of these matters. We cannot go to our constituents and say "You will lose your old-age pension, your unemployment benefit, your Health Service facilities, or this, that, or the other"—whatever it may be—"because of cash limits" and at the same time say that some Departments are exempt. I do not mind whether it is the Conservative Party allowing the Ministry of Defence to be exempt or people on my side who might say that social security should be exempt. If we are to have a principle, we cannot allow one Department of State to get away with it while all the other recipients of State beneficence suffer. We cannot say that some will suffer but others will get away with it.
Above all, we ought not to say, as this Government are now saying, that cash limits apply to everybody except the Ministry of Defence and a few others and that no one will ever be allowed to discuss that exception.

Mr. Speaker: May I make just one correction? It is possible for the House to vote on every one of these motions without anyone putting his name to a notice of objection.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: I support the views just expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) and the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English). The business motion tabled by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is entirely in order, and it happens to conform with the procedures used in recent years for dealing with the Spring Supplementary Estimates, but I hope that that does not confer upon those procedures any measure of acceptability, since I believe


an issue of principle to be involved, that issue of principle being the method by which the legislature may more effectively control the spending power of the Executive.
Over the years, the weapons in the hands of the legislature to deal with the overspending of the Executive have grown very rusty. The motion today emphasises that, because, as my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman said, the House is being asked to vote on the nod or to have Divisions at 7 o'clock on a total of about £900 million of extra expenditure. In my view, before the House is asked to make a decision of that sort the Ministers responsible for the necessary extra expenditure should in some way be called to account by the House. I said this in the last Parliament as well.
A large sum of money is involved. What are the ways open to us to proceed? The last Procedure Committee discussed various methods. As the hon. Member for Nottingham, West said, we were about to examine the procedure for financial Bills and legislation when the election intervened and we could not proceed further.
I submit that the time is now right for us to look again at our procedures for dealing with financial legislation concerning Estimates. This sort of thing should not happen. We are being asked to vote tonight on principle and then, two days later, on Wednesday, we are to be given the priceless opportunity to debate the details of this expenditure. If that procedure had been put to the House in that way at any time I am certain that it would not have been approved by the House.
The debates on the Consolidated Fund Bill, while not valueless—they have some value, in that hon. Members may raise various matters—are not valuable, in that they cannot lead to any conclusion or decision. To have 18 hours of debate on decisions that have been taken tonight by the House at 7 o'clock is really like throwing a bone to a dog to stop it barking.
I hope that the House will develop a different way of dealing with such matters. There are now Select Committees shadowing each Department. There is no reason why those Committees should not be encouraged, or invited, to take evidence on the Estimates. I am referring not

only to this year but to future years, when the matter will arise again.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I am sympathetic to the notion that these matters should be considered by the Select Committees. However, that does not invalidate my point that those Select Committees would usually examine these matters after the money had been voted by Parliament, and that is what concerns me.

Mr. Baker: I agree with my hon. Friend. The Select Committee should consider the Estimates before they return to the House. We could move towards a system in which a Select Committee reports back to the House before a decision is taken. That would be a fundamental change in our procedure, which could not come about without further examination by the Procedure Committee, which as not yet been established. There has not been a Procedure Committee for the past nine months.
As this Parliament develops there will be several matters arising, week by week, that involve procedural matters, of which this is by far the most important. I add my voice to that of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West, who said that another Procedure Committee should be established to which matters such as this could be referred, especially matters dealing with the handling of financial legislation.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) on raising this matter, very properly, in the House today. I congratulate also the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) and my hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker). I hope that my hon. Friend will take that as a sincere tribute and not as a bone cast to him to encourage him not to bark. It is quite right that Back Benchers should bark in the House and raise these matters. But it is not only Back Benchers who can debate these matters. As I pointed out last Thursday, had the Opposition chosen, on this Supply day—

Mr. English: The Opposition Front Bench.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am grateful for that footnote; I have often thought that on procedural matters the hon. Gentleman should sit on the Opposition Front Bench. Perhaps things would be different if he were to do so.
The Opposition Front Bench—to avoid another interruption—could have chosen to debate the matter today. I pointed out also that there was an opportunity to raise the matter next Wednesday on the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill.
I agree that the present procedures are not entirely satisfactory. It is the prerogative of the House to grant or withold Supply. That is the foundation of the whole power of the House. At some point in the future that might be examined. I do not think that I can go further than that today.

Mr. Costain: Is it true to say that these matters are examined by the Public Accounts Committee at the present time?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: My hon. Friend makes a perfectly valid point. However, the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford was that the House should examine these matters before they were voted.
I shall consider establishing a new Procedure Committee, but we have already an extremely important series of proposals from the last Procedure Committee, which we have not yet disposed of, although we have made good progress in the matter. The Select Com-

mittees that have been established are throwing up problems from day to day. A large amount of my time is spent in trying to sort out the difficulties raised and to help hon. Members in that respect. No doubt the request can be acceded to in due course.
I do not wish to delay the House any longer, as important matters have been set down by the Opposition for debate. The hon. Member for Nottingham, West referred to a previous event when he claimed some credit for having raised these matters on an Opposition Supply day. On that occasion the discussion on the points that he raised continued for so long that the Supply day was effectively lost and another had to be provided.

Mr. English: rose—

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall not give way. I expressed my appreciation to my hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford not only for the effective way in which he raised these matters but for the economical way in which he put them. As the House wishes to debate housing and immigration, I shall sit down.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, upon the first motion in the name of Mr. Secretary Pym being made, Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question upon that motion and upon the remaining Questions which, under Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply), he is required to put at Ten o'clock.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[13th ALLOTTED DAY]—considered.

HOUSING (GOVERNMENT POLICIES)

Mr. Roy Hattersley: I beg to move,
That this House deplores the housing policies of Her Majesty's Government, which are making it more expensive to buy or rent a home than at any time in this country's history.
The debate is about the high cost of Conservativism—the price that a Tory Government requires to be paid by owner-occupiers, by council tenants and by tenants of private landlords. That price was not mentioned in last May's Conservative manifesto. Indeed, the Conservative Party posed, above all other things, as the friend of the owner-occupiers. By posing as their friend it won thousands of votes by literal deception.
The election is over, and the families who were deceived face the need to pay the highest mortgage rate in our history. In addition to that burden, we are about to see the biggest increase in council house rents in our history, and the tenants of private landlords can look forward simply to paying higher rents and enjoying less security of tenure.
The debate about a related housing subject—the virtual ending of council house building, and the damage being caused by the policies of the Secretary of State for the Environment to hundreds of improvement schemes—must wait for another day. However, we wish to discuss the housing investment programme statement made by the Secretary of State on 21 February, intentionally late and intentionally inadequate. The full debate on that subject will not take place today, but there is one aspect of his announcement that must be dealt with now, namely, the correction that he attempted to make—quite wrongly—between previous years of low council rents and the recent reductions in council house building.
The implication of that statement was quite clear—that a high rents policy would enable councils to meet housing needs more easily. Whatever the Government's reason for forcing up council house rents it is not their intention to increase council house building. The Secretary of State's statement about meeting the needs and problems that have become increasingly specific and increasingly local is, quite frankly, no more than a bad joke. In most of the areas where the local and specific needs are greatest the Government have ended council house building altogether.
In town after town the housing investment programme allocation, which is supposed to finance new building, mortgages and investment programmes, will barely cover the cost of work that was started this year or last year, and, because of its size and its scope must be paid for next year and the year after.
I wish to give three examples of the intolerable situation that the Government have wilfully created, although there are many more authorities who are placed in that same intolerable position.
My first example is the city of Sheffield. After meeting obligations on outstanding contracts, Sheffield will be left with a little in excess of £500,000 in its housing investment programme allocation for next year. That is enough to build about 40 new houses in Sheffield in 1980–81.
The city of Bristol needed £40 million to meet its outstanding commitments on work already begun. It was allocated £12 million.
Camden has £45 million already committed to work in hand. It was allocated £44 million. In those boroughs, in and outside London, the net result of Conservative policy is no new housing at all. That is not surprising, since this year's housing investment allocation is 33·4 per cent. lower than last year's.
I hope that in passing I may explain to the Secretary of State how much we hope that we shall be spared nonsensical excuses about councils in previous years not using all their available funds. Next year local authorities are being offered 21 per cent. less than they will actually spend this year. It is a matter not of margins to allow for councils that do not


want to press forward but of literal reductions in the money available, comparing what the Government will give with what has recently been spent. It is a matter of wilfully reducing the numbers of council houses that are built and completed.
As well as this level of housing investment allocation bringing to an end council house building in areas that most need council house building, since that same sum is supposed to finance improvement and rehabilitation programmes and mortgage schemes, many of those will be wound up during 1980–81 because there will be no money to finance them.
It is no wonder that the Tory chairman of the Association of District Councils said that he regarded the proposals as very grim and that a substantial number of the nation's older houses would decline beyond the point of no return. That is part of the legacy that the Conservative Party will pass on to its successors—years in which the housing stock will deteriorate and in which the number of new houses for rent in the municipal sector will decline.
The net result of the Government's policy—their reductions in investment and their insistence on increases in rents—is that they are now offering council tenants the opportunity of getting much worse and paying much more, for as the quality of houses deteriorates their rents will continue to increase. This year the average increase in council rents will be about 28 per cent.—an average figure of between £1·80 and £2. I give three typical examples.
First, after the rate support grant announcement, the city of Birmingham decided to make increases of up to £3 on its rents—rents that now have an average value of £9·04. It also decided to extend its normal practice from a 48-week collection to a 52-week collection. It had planned an increase in rents of between 21 per cent. and 22 per cent.—an increase that it hoped would last for at least a year—but, as a result of the Secretary of State's statement, when he announced the housing investment programme allocations and his desire that rents should go up by a further 60p during the autumn the Conservative-controlled housing committee in Birmingham at its next meeting will have to discuss what additions it should make to an already substantial

rent increase of between 21 per cent. and 22 per cent.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: To illuminate the debate, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what proportion of average earnings these new rents will be and how they compare with the figures for five years and 10 years ago?

Mr. Hattersley: Yes. The comparison is easy to make. The increase for which the Secretary of State is asking is 28 per cent. That 28 per cent. is substantially more than wage increases that have been enjoyed throughout the country. The net result of that simple arithmetical sum is that people will be paying a larger proportion of their net income in view of what has been decided this year.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): The right hon. Gentleman may not have heard the question put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley). He asked the right hon. Gentleman to compare it as a proportion of income five years and 10 years ago.

Mr. Hattersley: I cannot do it for either of those periods. However, I can make the comparison that is important for today's debate. It is a substantially increased proportion of income, comparing the period of the Labour Government before May 1979 and the period of the Conservative Government. The net result of the 28 per cent. increase is that the Secretary of State wants council house tenants to pay more of their income in rents. It is as simple and important as that.
In some areas, where local authorities have taken the Secretary of State's word even more literally, the increase will be even larger. The obvious example is Wandsworth, where rents are increasing by up to £4·50 a week—an increase of 34 per cent.

Mr. Nicholas Scott: What about the rates?

Mr. Hattersley: I thought that someone rather less perceptive than the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) would cry out "What about the rates?" Of course, Wandsworth has increased its rates less than most other boroughs, but it has increased its rents more than most


other boroughs. That means that Wandsworth has decided to place the burden imposed on it by the Secretary of State mostly at the expense of council house tenants.
I give another example—Southend, which is proposing an average increase of £1·41 in April. Conservative Members, who are so quick on the uptake this afternoon, will understand exactly what I mean when I say that having proposed an increase of £1·41 in April, to make absolutely sure it has announced another increase of £1·4l next autumn.
These increases are the direct and absolute responsibility of the Secretary of State. They are increases that council house tenants face at the same time as they are obliged to pay substantial increases in their rate bills. I have no doubt that as the day wears on the Secretary of State and others will tell us that the increases in rates, which are also borne by council house tenants, are generally and specifically the result of profligate Labour councils, but the facts are very different. The average increase for the country is now well over 25 per cent., and that is the direct result of the Secretary of State's rate support grant statement.
Many Tory authorities that are to impose increases of up to 30 per cent. will argue that there is no other option open to them. The Opposition will argue—I believe that as the months go on we shall be able to demonstrate—that where Labour authorities have imposed increases greater than that it is also true to say that there was no other option open to them if they wanted to preserve services—and they were right to want to preserve services.

Mr. Michael Latham: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall the White Paper issued by the Labour Government, under the auspices of the right hon. Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett), which stated that council rents must go up as a proportion of income?

Mr. Hattersley: Yes. I am not trying to argue that council rents should never increase. If the hon. Gentleman, who is always impatient in these debates, had waited for a moment, he would have heard that I had something to say about what the increases would be. For the moment, I content myself with making

the point that rent increases, like rate increases, are the direct responsibility of the Secretary of State. They have been advocated by him, they have been enforced by his rate support grant policy, and no doubt they will soon be reinforced if his new subsidy scheme becomes law. If that happens the level of housing subsidies will be largely determined and no doubt manipulated by the Secretary of State, and councils will once more be allowed or encouraged—or, I suspect, obliged—to create surpluses on their housing revenue accounts.
I do not believe that anything better illustrates the differences between the parties than the Government's readoption of the old Rent Act idea of making a profit on council housing. Of course we expect rents to go up from time to time, but the idea that they should be pushed to a level far above economic necessity and that legislation should be passed by the House to allow substantial surpluses to be carried on housing revenue accounts, seems absolutely wrong. It is no more than a hidden tax on council tenants, similar to the hidden tax that gas consumers are paying. I believe that that demonstrates the deep disdain that the Tory Party has always felt, and apparently still feels towards council house tenants.
I do not pretend that private tenants have escaped the baleful effects of Tory policy. The Conservative Government offer them more frequent rent increases combined with decreased security of tenure. Since Southend interested Conservative Members, I might tell them that last Thursday, on my way to the scene of that by-election, I picked up a document that had been left in the train by an earlier commuter. It was a piece of paper—indeed, an advertisement—circulated by "Business and Residential Tenancies". It invited participants in a seminar the previous day, which was held at the Carlton Tower hotel. For £95, one could attend and enjoy both lunch and pre-lunch drinks.
The seminar was to teach participants, among other things,
the extent to which security can be avoided and ways of defeating security and regaining possession.
It added that the principal afternoon session would be devoted to ways of maximising the advantage under the new Housing Bill. For £95, one got lunch,


accommodation and some tips on how to kick out one's tenants. That not only says something about the right hon. Gentleman's policy; it says something about the sort of society that his policy is creating.
Perhaps I should not be surprised—I am sure that my hon. Friends are not surprised—that the Conservative Party continues to be the friend of the private landlord and the enemy of council tenants. What has come to the country as much more of a shock is the Conservative Party's callous disregard for the interests of owner-occupiers. Before May, no one was promised more. Since May, no one has been more cynically betrayed. Owner-occupiers read the plaintive description in the Conservative manifesto of the problems of rising mortgages, and I suspect that they really believed the promise that the new Government would lighten their burden. In fact, thanks to Government policy, the burden is heavier than ever before. There has been a record increase in the mortgage interest rate, announced and implemented on 1 January—3·25 per cent.—which has resulted in a record level of mortgage interest of 15 per cent.
The consequent increase in payments demanded of many families has been disastrous for them. Let me remind the House what the increases are. A family with a £5,000 mortgage today pays £8·20 a month more than it did before the general election. A family with a £10,000 mortgage pays £16·40 more a month than it did before the general election. A family with a £15,000 mortgage pays £24·60 more a month than it did before the general election. Those figures are all net of tax relief. However, until May actual payments will be much higher, because the new tax codes are not to be calculated until then. As a result, the family with a £15,000 mortgage has since January been handing over an extra £36·75 each month.
For many families struggling to buy their homes increases of that sort represent near disaster. Certainly, for many young couples who are hoping to buy their first house the present level of employment makes owner-occupation literally beyond their reach.

Mr. John Heddle (Lichfield and Tam-worth): Will the right hon. Gentlman

take time to read this month's edition of "Building Society Affairs", which is distributed by the Building Societies Association? It has probably come through his post within the last two or three days. The first paragraph reads:
Nevertheless, despite the options given by many building societies to extend loan periods and a general willingness of societies to help out in cases of hardship,
—the hardship cases to which the right hon. Gentleman has just referred—
the majority of existing borrowers have freely decided to increase their repayments".
It goes on:
The demand for new mortgages does not appear to have been much reduced by the higher mortgage rate.

Mr. Hattersley: Let me trump the hon. Gentleman's building societies' ace with my Nationwide trump. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has this week received a similar document from the Nationwide Building Society—a society that, as the hon. Gentleman knows, traditionally looks after borrowers who are perhaps struggling to maintain their mortgages, because of its co-operative associations, which go back to working-class roots over the last 70 years. In its bulletin the Nationwide says that one in three of its borrowers has experienced the problem that the hon. Gentleman has tried to minimise. These borrowers have been unable to pay the increased payments, and one in three has found it necessary to extend his mortgage beyond its normal life. That may not seem a terrible thing to the hon. Gentleman, but it does to me —that one-third of all the mortgage holders with one of the country's largest building societies now discover that their indebtedness has to he pushed forward into a period when they hoped that they would be free of mortgage repayments.

Mr. Michael Shersby: rose—

Mr. Hattersley: I shall not give way again. I have given way four times. I do not want to detain the House and to prevent a long speech from the Secretary of State.
The second example that I should like to give from the same bulletin concerns the plight of first-time buyers. The first-time buyer is now required to spend, on average, 24 per cent. of his net income in order to obtain a mortgage. That is the


largest amount of net income that first-time buyers have ever been forced to contribute towards their mortgages. It is even larger than the previous record of 22·5 per cent. which was endured during the dying months of the Administration of the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath).
Conservative Members must understand that for young couples on the borderline of buying a house the idea of paying one week's income out of four simply towards mortgage repayments makes home ownership literally impossible. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will say something which gives them some hope that in the not too distance future the situation will be improved.
I say that because on 26 November we debated that subject at some length. We dealt in detail, which I do not propose to do today, with the Prime Minister's false and foolish optimism about mortgage rates, expressed by her in June and July of 1979. When she expressed that false and foolish optimism she led the building societies to believe that the minimum lending rate was about to fall. During our last debate on this subject the Secretary of State explained what went wrong. In the light of the Prime Minister's summer confidence, he was not reckless enough to blame the problem on the inheritance from the previous Government. Instead, he offered two other reasons for the Government being blown off course. Neither was the public sector borrowing requirement, which we charitably must assume the Prime Minister understood when she made her false promises in June and July. The two reasons that he offered were the failure to collect VAT increases and telephone bills, and increases in American and European prime lending rates.
I take it that one of those problems will soon disappear—the collection of back tax, but I fear that the height of international lending rates will remain with us. When we debated this subject last time, the Secretary of State described how high hopes were dashed at No. 10. He said:
it was very much the Government's hope—and my hon. Friend the Prime Minister made it clear—that it would be a short-term position. However,

—he said, smiling at the House-
it did not turn out to be short-term."— [Official Report, 26 November 1979; Vol. 974, c. 907.]
That discovery, which came as such a surprise to him, caused great distress to the leader writers of The Daily Telegraph. They said:
Mrs. Thatcher aptly described the Conservatives as the home owners party. Sustained high mortgage interest rates could easily affect that natural affinity".
I have rarely had the opportunity of congratulating The Daily Telegraph on its perception, but on Thursday, after Southend, I look forward to doing so.
In order that the Secretary of State may make a belated attempt to restore his position as the home owner's friend, I hope that he will answer three questions about the long and medium-term prospects for mortgages in this country. I shall certainly not ask him any of the silly questions about when MLR is likely to be reduced that he used to ask from the Opposition Front Bench. That is not a sensible question to put to a Minister. I hope that he will attempt to answer seriously and directly the three questions that I wish to put to him, rather than taking refuge, in his usual way, in an official text, punctuated with Oxford Union abuse.
First, does the Secretary of State share my view that mortgage holders ought to brace themselves for a long period of high repayments, and that while present international financial climates and domestic fiscal policies persist mortgage holders ought to be prepared to continue paying at the present uniquely high rate, or at about that rate?
Secondly, what can the Secretary of State tell us about the fundamental change that is being considered in building society policy—the idea that even when minimum lending rate falls there may not be matching reductions in the mortgage lending rate? That is part of the result of the building societies' need to recoup losses that they made when the Government pretended that help was at hand in the summer. But that is only part of the reason. I notice that hon. Gentlemen behind the Secretary of State are nodding. If MLR comes down, that is no reason to assume that building societies will move in the same direction.


The Secretary of State must have discussed this with the building societies. He has a duty to tell the House what those discussions revealed.
Thirdly, will the Secretary of State answer in a sensible way—he has signally failed to do so in the past—my question about the effect of council house sales on the prospects for private mortgages? I put it to him in this way: the clear policy of the Government is to finance as many council house sales as possible out of private building society funds; indeed, a letter on that subject has been sent from Conservative Central Office to Conservative councils telling them whenever possible to raise the money for council house sales from the building societies.
If a large number of council house tenants apply to the building societies, there can be only two possible consequences. The first is that fewer mortgage demands, proportionately, will be met. Already only seven out of every eight applicants receive a mortgage. If the demand is suddenly increased, obviously one possibility is for a smaller proportion of demands to receive affirmative answers.
The alternative is for the building societies to increase their interest rates in order to attract new lending, so that they can finance new borrowing. The building societies fear that they will be forced into an unnecessary increase, in current terms, in their lending rates to attract the new capital to meet the demands of council house sales. Again I say to the right hon. Gentleman that he must have discussed this with the building societies. Again I say that he has a duty to tell the House the outcome of those discussions.
My fear is that the Secretary of State will not do so. Instead, he will take his usual refuge in insisting that all these difficulties are necessary and that all these hardships have to be endured to create the Conservative economic Eldorado in which even few of his own Back Benchers now believe. In 10 months, the public expenditure cuts, the increase in rents and the record mortgage rates have produced a reduction in industrial investment, a deterioration in the balance of payments,

and a doubling of the inflation rate. The economic policy that is supposed to justify the hardship that has been caused in Great Britain, has not improved things at all. It has simply resulted in the British economy, the The Economist put it this week, "sliding into recession".
The cause of that unhappy condition, and the cause of the suffering facing tenants and owner-occupiers alike, is the same. It is the doctrinaire incompetence of the Government. The country knows it, even if the Secretary of State does not. We propose to vote in defence of the country's interest tonight.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
this House welcomes the measures that the Government are taking to bring public expenditure on housing into line with what the country can afford, to encourage the release of more privately rented accommodation, and to extend home ownership to a greater number of people than ever before.".
There is a single word which illustrates the profound difference between the attitude of the Government in their first year and the approach of the Labour Government in their last desperate years. It is the word "responsibility".
It is the task of the Government to produce policies which are essential to the regeneration of the economy, and no one can seriously question that this involves lower levels of public expenditure. It is in this context that I have asked local government to play its part. The only result of the continued ignoring of economic reality is a decline that threatens to become irreversible in this country. It makes no sense to try to debate housing costs, whether for rented homes or purchased homes, outside the economic context.
Our debate today is not only about housing and public expenditure; it is also about the opportunist rejection of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) of policies which at one stage he loyally espoused when the Government of whom he was then a member found themselves compelled to pursue.
Today the right hon. Gentleman attacks the Government for reducing public expenditure by increasing rents in the public sector and for reducing public sector building. It is as though all those years of experience—and particularly 1976—might never have been. But the record of what he did, what he said and what he voted for is clear. His words are clearly recorded. He could not have set out the position more clearly when he said:
An essential element in the programme for economic recovery is, and must be, a reduction in some element of public expenditure … I am sure that the people whom my hon. Friend and I represent have much to gain from the progress of economic recovery, and this is all part of the plan for bringing that about"— [Official Report, 11 October 1976; Vol. 917. c. 5.]
What changed? I have asked the right hon. Gentleman that question from the Dispatch Box on a previous occasion. He gave no answer, of course, but everyone knows the answer. The Labour Party is back in opposition. It is out of power and it is once again trying to offer wholly unrealistic options to the country. It is now oblivious of the national interest, and no one in this House will be deceived for one instant by the arguments that the right hon. Gentleman has tried to put before the House.

Mr. Frank Allaun: I am most grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. He is making much play of the fact that the Government intend to reduce public expenditure on housing. Is it not a fact that if, as a result of his Government's policy, a large number of council houses are sold, tax relief on mortgage interest on each of those houses will have to be paid? It will mean that the Government will incur hundreds of millions of pounds a year extra in tax relief, which is public expenditure.

Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Member will know full well that the consequence of selling a council house is to attract from the individual concerned a very substantial increase in the amount that he pays towards his housing costs, because he is attracted by the benefits of home ownership.

Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: Is not the Secretary of State aware that the burden of tax relief increases every time that the house

is sold, and that in the future we shall be generating a constantly escalating level of public expenditure or loss of public income through increased tax relief year after year into the future, for as long as the house lasts?

Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Member will be fully aware of the benefits which come from encouraging people to buy and maintain their own homes without the subsidies from the public Exchequer of the sort that we characterise in the public sector. The hon. Member will be fully aware that there is an overwhelming demand among people in this country to own their own homes. I do not see what purpose he achieves by constantly suggesting that we should frustrate that demand in the way that his policies would achieve.
The House, rather than following the line of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, would be wise to stick with his words of 1976, which were that an essential element of economic recovery must be the reduction of public spending. The excessive plans for public spending that we inherited are one of the causes of the present level of interest rates in our economy. Building society rates cannot be insulated from the rest of the economy. Of course no one welcomes a mortgage interest rate of 15 per cent., but that rate becomes inevitable when general interest rates are at their present level. As we all know, building societies have to offer a competitive rate of interest for savings. Without those savings there would be no mortgages.
The previous Government were responsible for incurring £40 billion of extra debt during their period of office. Consequently, approximately half the current level of public sector deficit has to go to pay the interest charges on the dais incurred by the previous Government. That makes the scale of the inheritance of the present Government more clearly understood.
In 1976, having tried in their early years to pursue precisely the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman, the Labour Government were stopped in their tracks because they ran out of credit. But now that they are in opposition they try to reverse history and persuade people that the economic facts are other than they themselves discovered them to have been.
High interest rates are welcome to no one, but they follow from the determination of the Government to control the money supply and from the level of Government borrowing. They reflect the rising world price of money. When it became clear last autumn that monetary growth was excessive, the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not hesitate to make the adjustment that was necessary. It was the only responsible option in an international context.
Already in Italy prime interest rates are 20 per cent. The West German Lombard rate has doubled to 8½ per cent. in the last year. In the same period French one-month discount rates have risen by more than half to 12⅜ per cent. In the United States prime interest rates are now approaching 18 per cent. We in Britain cannot ignore these trends. Everyone knows that our money markets are world markets and it serves no purpose for the right hon. Gentleman to imply that somehow or other we can isolate ourselves from these trends. The only way in which interest rates will fall is when our policies succeed in reducing the demand for money and credit, and the upward pressures on prices abate. There is no half-way house for this country. As inflation comes down through a balance of fiscal and interest rate policies and controlled public expenditure, so, too, will interest rates.
But the House will notice a curious contradiction in the right-hon. Gentleman's position. He attacks the present level of interest charges as they affect mortgages. He attacks the cost of owning a home. What he does not explain is that the single most consistent thing that he personally has done since the election is to call for higher levels of Government expenditure, which means more borrowing and therefore higher interest rates on the one hand, whilst on the other he is urging local government to push up its spending and increase its rates, thus adding to the cost of home ownership.
As the House listened to the right hon. Gentleman, did it bear in mind that he goes up and down the country with that single-minded purpose? It was in Leicester, last November, that he said to local government representatives:

We believe in public spending and we support and will restore public expenditure to its proper level.
To spend more in current circumstances would mean more borrowing by the public sector, which would mean more interest rate increases, a further squeeze on the capacity of the private sector to invest, and thus rising unemployment.

Mr. Allan Roberts: rose—

Mr. Heseltine: The higher interest rates in the economy would lead to yet higher mortgage rates for home owners. So the right hon. Gentleman's policies would, inevitably, hit even harder the group for whom he today pretends to care. He knows—because he went through precisely this dilemma as a Minister of the Crown—that that is the reality. He recognised it while in office. It is only in opposition that he seeks to pretend that it is otherwise.
I turn now to one of the points that the right hon. Gentleman made at some length, and that is rents in the public sector. The same basic economic premises apply, but perhaps with an additional problem, which is the distortion specifically imported by the rent subsidy policies of the previous Government.
Perhaps I can help by giving some of the figures which were requested by some of my hon. Friends but which the right hon. Gentleman conveniently did not have available. In real terms, housing subsidies for local authority housing more than doubled between 1973–1974 and 1978–1979, from £628 million to £1,373 million. Between 1974–1975 and 1978–1979 investment in capital spending was halved from £4·2 billion to £2·15 billion. The right hon. Gentleman was not the Minister responsible at the time, but he is implying that my policies have, in some way, changed direction. What he has not taken on board is that under the previous Government the rates of new capital expenditure in local authority housing fell year after year, and they fell, on average, over four years, by broadly the figure by which I shall be responsible for reducing them next year. So in a five-year context, the Labour Government will have been responsible for a reduction four times as large as I shall be responsible for next year. That is the fact of the matter and if the right hon.
Gentleman has not understood the consequences of what his Government did he has no right to come to the House and make the kind of speech he just made.
Not only that, but by the time the Labour Party left office the cost of subsidising every new council house built was running at approximately £30 per week, on average. That meant that new building had become so expensive that capital programmes were destroyed whilst the subsidy system distributed relief in an often random and unnecessary form to some of those living in council housing. So, over the year, the programmes were slashed at an annual rate of about 20 per cent.

Mr. Eric S. Heller: Whilst there is some substance in what the Secretary of State is saying —I am the first one to admit it, otherwise I should not have argued against it from the Opposition Benches—he knows that the National Federation of Building Trades Employers is utterly disgusted with this Government's policy and members of that organisation perhaps helped to get the Conservatives into office. That organisation fears that this Government's policy towards housing will create a far worse situation in the building industry than there ever was under the Labour Government.

Mr. Heseltine: It is not for me to explain the views of the building employers, but the fact is that, given a choice between the policies of this Government and those of the previous Government, they would support the policies of this Government. I can think of one lot of policies only which the building employers would dislike more than the policies of the previous Government and that is the sort of policies that the hon. Member would operate if he had the chance.
For blatantly political reasons, the Labour Government refused to follow policies which they knew made economic sense. They allowed the rent subsidies to rise and gave in to the pressures to keep down rents to levels which all but a small group within the Labour Party recognised were unreasonably and unacceptably low.
The consequence of that short-term and expedient policy was to destroy the

public sector housing programme, as both Labour and Conservative-controlled councils added up the bills and discovered that the price of the policies of the previous Government was too high to pay.
Therefore, it falls once again to this Government to try to restore responsibility and common sense to housing policy. Once again, as we have seen so often in the past, free of office the Labour Party condemns this Government for policies which, in its more honest moments in government, it knew and said were the policies that should be pursued.
Perhaps we could look more closely at rents. The Labour Green Paper on housing policy of June 1977 said:
The Government consider that over a run of years rents should rise broadly in line with money income.
The then Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) said, in The Guardian that this was the most reassuring news for tenants for a long time. With any likely outturn of earnings this year the net effect of the rent guidelines that I have announced is to bring rents back by the end of 1980 to the percentage of average earnings prevailing when that Green Paper was published by the last Labour Government. What I have done is to announce policies which were advocated by the Labour Government, who lacked the courage to carry them out.
Far from rents being kept in line with earnings, they dropped steadily year by year. As subsidies rose, rents dropped until by 1979–80 they were only 6·4 per cent. of income.

Mr. Frank Allaun: So they should be.

Mr. Hesekine: We understand the views of the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) as long as he understands that the views he expresses have nothing to do with the views that his own Secretary of State supported when he was in office.
Of course the Labour Government in power thought at the time that they were buying credit. In reality, they were steadily destroying the credibility of much of their public sector housing programme. Back in 1976 that oft-lonely voice of reason in Labour Party policies—though


now much maligned as history is rewritten—the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett) said:
I believe that we are right to plan in the longer term for the proportion of housing costs to be borne by rents to grow from 43 per cent. in 1976–77 to 50 per cent. by 1980."—[Official Report, 10 March 1976; Vol. 907, c. 453]
What was the result? By 1979 rents, as defined by the then Chief Secretary, had actually dropped to 41 per cent. of costs. The Labour Government knew what should be done. They put forward and defended responsible policies up to the point where they were actually expected to implement them, and then for short electoral reasons they ran away.
Under a Labour Government council rents rose by 55 per cent. and earnings rose by more than 85 per cent. That fact speaks for itself. It led to the collapse of public sector housing in this country.
The same story is to be found, but over an even longer period, in the private rented sector. Too many rents are uneconomic and owners have responded exactly as one would expect. Premises have fallen into disrepair—

Mr. Robert C. Brown: rose—

Mr. Heseltine: No, I shall not give way. I have given way four times already and this is only a short debate. As I was saying, premises have fallen into disrepair, and wherever possible landlords have sold up when they have had the opportunity. As a consequence, rented accommodation has become scarcer and scarcer. The demand in this sector now greatly exceeds the supply.

Mr. Jack Straw: rose—

Mr. Heseltine: I am sorry; I have tried to make the point clear. I usually give way; if I did so it would mean that I would spend a longer time at the Dispatch Box, and this is only a short debate.
The position in the private rented sector is hardly surprising. Controlled rents have been basically unchanged since 1956—they average about £1 a week. In the rent-regulated sector, rents have risen by just over 100 per cent. Yet earnings and repair costs over the same time have risen by about two and a half times as much. In 1970 fair rents produced an

estimated net yield of about 7 per cent. By 1980 it was down to 3 per cent. The House cannot run away from the consequences of those figures. The only thing that will happen is that the supply of accommodation in the private and the public sector will decline and the people who will suffer most will be those who are looking for homes.
No responsible Government can ignore these facts. The private rented sector could and should play a major role in meeting housing needs, especially for the young, the single and the mobile.

Mr. Straw: rose—

Mr. Heseltine: I shall not give way to the hon. Member, and I must ask him to try to understand the reasons why I cannot. The facts are very thin on the ground—

Mr. Straw: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawshaw): Order. The Secretary of State has indicated that he does not intend to give way. This is only a short debate and hon. Members are only wasting time.

Mr. Heseltine: Therefore, we are taking sensible measures. The Housing Bill will end the system of controlled rents and will replace it by fair rents. Tenants will be protected by rent allowances and by supplementary benefits. In the regulated sector the three-year period for fair rent revision will be reduced to two years and phasing will be in two cequal stages, rather than three. The changes will be over a three-year period. Shortholds will add to the supply. The simplified regime for lettings by resident landlords will also add to the supply and assured tenancies will encourage new building for rent.
For the first time in years a Government have looked for constructive ways of halting and reversing the decline in this sector. The contrast with the behaviour of the previous Government is vivid. Sixteen months after they had promised it they had still not published a report on the private rented sector. Once again, the Labour Government refused to face the fundamental issues, and the net result, as ever, was damage in the end to the very people whom they claimed to be trying to protect.
Year after year under the last Labour Government the number of homes to rent declined. They were totally inactive. They commissioned evidence; they had a review and then another review; then they sought more evidence. They thought, they talked, they argued and they consulted, but they actually did nothing at all. They did not even dare to publish their own review. We can only suppose that their review was a blistering indictment of their own policies.
I turn now to rates—perhaps the burden that the householder resents most of all. Let there be no doubt about where the responsibility for the burden of high rates this year will lie. It will lie with the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook and his colleagues who have embarked on a deliberate campaign to encourage local authorities to spend more.
I never cease to be amazed by the right hon. Gentleman's effrontery. But to put down the motion that we are debating today in the light of his record over the last few months is perhaps setting new standards, even by his own. Only five weeks ago on 2 February 1980, the right hon. Member was off on one of his weekend frolics. He told his audience:
I am sure that when it is in your power to avoid making cuts you will do so… of course in many, perhaps all, areas that will mean rate increase. … or to put it more precisely, extra rate increases.
While the right hon. Gentleman was travelling the country urging more rate increases and extra local government expenditure I was actually pleading with local authorities to reduce the level of their expenditure. I had already asked them to reduce spending by 2.5 per cent. next year compared with last year. I had introduced a rate support grant settlement which was absolutely fair[Interruption.]—but the percentage of the rate support grant was exactly the same as that which Labour Members introduced themselves. They actually based their assessment on the assumption of a 5 per cent. and an 8 per cent. change in wages and prices respectively. They forced that down local authorities' throats. If they really believe that, against that background, my rate support grant settlement is anything other than fair, they are not aware of the figures. But of course we are fully aware that they are not concerned with the figures. At every meet-

ing with local government that I attended I asked that not a penny more should be raised than was absolutely essential. I revert to the right hon. Gentleman's speech of 2 February. He said:
Most of you"—
he told Labour local councillors—
will choose the additional increase, and in doing so, will receive the wholehearted support of the Labour movement.
There we have it. That is the Labour Party encouraging the level of public expenditure to be increased and urging its members and its councillors to push it up. There it is begging and imploring them to put up the rates. The right hon. Gentleman cannot be disappointed with the results that he has achieved. It is not as if the Labour Party has let him down. It may not be much that Opposition Members can agree about, but when it comes to putting up the rates they have a clam-like solidarity.
I start with the right hon. Gentleman's home town. It is interesting to start with Sheffield because the right hon. Gentleman has explained to us how the Labour Party works in Sheffield. The House may have seen the article which appeared in New Society on 31 January. It states:
We ran the city with fists of stainless steel, a metal no decent Sheffielder would cover with a velvet glove. We took all the Committee chairmanships. We ensured that every board of school governors had a majority of Labour Party members. We met as a Labour group on the Monday before the full council meeting and examined every sentence of the council minutes with meticulous care. By the end of the meeting every line in the whole, 100-page document was either official policy or subject to official amendment. There were no free votes. Any councillor who sought without approval to alter philosophy, proposal or punctuation was automatically disciplined.
No one in Sheffield need have any doubt about who is clenching the iron fist this year, as the rates are squeezed up by 45 per cent. in one year. The ratepayers of Sheffield, by the standards of the Labour Party, have not come off that badly. In Liverpool Labour has put up the rates by 50 per cent. In Wolverhampton it has put them up by 56 per cent. Every day new records are broken. Labour may have put up the rates by a staggering 177 per cent. in Stockton-on-Tees, but there is still time for later results by late runners to break Labour's record in this rate-fixing contest. For the right hon. Gentleman it is still very much a case of 177 not out as he wields his bat.
It is interesting to consider the right hon. Gentleman's advice to put up all the rates, to increase expenditure and to increase all the bills. Let us consider how much he has achieved in London. Last week the Evening Standard published a league table. It seems that 11 Labour authorities have achieved greater rate rises than those achieved by the highest placed Tory councils. All the right hon. Gentleman's friends are on the roll of honour—for example, Lambeth, Hackney, Lewisham and Southwark. They are all there with rises over 45 per cent.
There is an increased burden and it is Labour's burden. It averages £2 a week for ratepayers in Lambeth and Islington. The price of municipal Socialism in Camden has now reached £408 a year. That contrasts dramatically with the much more responsible behaviour from Conservative authorities throughout the country. In many Conservative-controlled authorities there has been an increase in line with or less than the rate of inflation. In London, 12 Conservative authorities have lower increases than the smallest Labour increase.
In Blackburn the Conservatives on the finance committee reduced by 5p the Labour plan. In Preston we see an increase of 14 per cent., in Sevenoaks 14 per cent., in Leeds 16 per cent., in West Lancashire 15 per cent. and in West Yorkshire 14 per cent. There is not the slightest doubt about the pattern that is emerging—responsibility and restraint in Conservative authorities compared with a conscious and determined policy in Labour authorities, led by the right hon. Gentleman, to spend, spend and spend again.
Last year the right hon. Gentleman told local authorities:
Don't get mad, get even.
With whom does he think they are getting even? Ratepayers are faced with having to find the extra money to pay the bills. Employees are forced out of jobs because their employers cannot afford mounting rate bills. Small businessmen are unable to carry the overheads. How does he explain to the family in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in a three-bedroomed semi that it is paying £269 a year so that the council may get even, when the same family in Leeds is paying less than half that amount?
That brings us back to the word with which I began—responsibility. We have adopted, and we shall continue to follow, the policies which we know are necessary in every area of economic and social policy. We shall be constructive. The measures in the Housing Bill will bring about the widest expansion of home ownership in the shortest period that the nation has even known as council houses are sold to their tenants. There is no shortage there of people wanting to take on the burden of home ownership. And in a range of other ways we shall help—for example, by building for sale, by starter homes, by an improved and streamlined home improvement grants system, by the AIMS scheme and by the promotion of shared ownership.
We shall encourage the concentration of the available resources on priorities. The House will be pleased to know that in the fourth quarter of 1979 starts and completions of dwellings specially designed for the chronically sick and disabled were running at new record levels. Grants for improvement and conversion were at the highest level for over four years. In the private sector builders are looking for ways to assist buyers, especially first-time purchasers. Through the speeding of the planning process I am helping builders. The building societies have agreed to make available £400 million this year under the support scheme.
Within the realities of the economic position our approach is fundamentally constructive. We recognise that the basic objective behind all our policy has to be the restoration of economic sense. We shall not hide behind the futile rejection of reality that characterised the housing policies of the previous Government. We shall continue to strive to bring about that sense of restraint in local Government spending for which the nation looks.

Mr. Stanley Newens: The Secretary of State referred to local authorities. A great many Conservative local authorities regard him as an utter disaster. I think that those were the words uttered by that well-known Conservative, Sir Horace Cutler, only this weekend when describing his policies. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to know what his rate support grant settlement means to


local authorities, he should ask the Conservative-controlled Essex county council. He will find that it is critical of the policies that he has introduced.
The South-East of England is frequently considered to be an area where there is more prosperity than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. That view is probably justifiable. However, for those of limited means who seek a home of their own, the position is probably more difficult in the South-East than in many other parts of the country, because people in other parts of the country are understandably attracted to the South-East in search of employment and promotion. That lengthens local authority waiting lists in the South-East, raises the price of houses and cuts down on the availability of all types of property.
The Labour council in Harlow, side by side with the Harlow development corporation, has enabled young people to obtain a tenancy after a comparatively short time. In this respect Harlow has been an oasis in a sea of Conservative gloom. Because there is no sex discrimination on the waiting list for second-generation applicants in Harlow, we often house people from outside; if a Harlow boy or girl marries someone from outside or vice versa, Harlow is always expected to provide the couple with a tenancy unless they wish to buy. There is no authority under Conservative control in the surrounding area which has a housing policy remotely approaching in quality that which has been pursued in Harlow new town.
The Government's policy is likely to end all that. First, the Government intend to force councils such as Harlow which do not sell council houses to sitting tenants to do so. That will reduce the number of houses available for reletting. Secondly, the Minister is refusing to hand over the only land held by the development corporation scheduled for housing development to the district council when the development corporation is wound up later this year. Thirdly, the cuts in central Government funds for housing will also hit Harlow. More applicants in need of housing—and not only in the immediate Harlow area—will have no alternative to buying, and prices are far beyond what most first-time buyers can envisage paying.
It is all very well for the Secretary of State to praise the ideal of home ownership. I agree with him, but it is impossible to buy a house in Harlow or the surrounding areas for less than £20,000. In North Weald, which is part of my constituency, the lowest price even for a two-bedroomed house is £30,000. A better, four-bedroomed house in West Essex may cost at least £50,000. I have with me a copy of the latest edition of the West Essex Gazette which contains advertisements of houses for sale. The price of the vast majority of those houses is way beyond the capacity of the ordinary couple who are first-time buyers. That is typical of practically the whole of Essex.
In these circumstances, not merely Socialists but Conservatives are concerned about their young people being forced to leave the villages and the areas in which they were brought up. Some time ago I led a deputation of the Conservative-controlled Sheering parish council to the Epping Forest council to ask it to build-houses in its parish for rent, but it refused. The policies that the Secretary of State and his party are pursuing are making matters infinitely worse for ordinary people who want a house.
Southend, which has already been mentioned in the debate, is also part of Essex. In Southend, too, one cannot buy a house for less than £20,000. Because of the increase in mortgage repayments this year, even after tax relief the average first-time buyer must pay £127 a month instead of £105 a month for a house of that price. That is what this Government are doing for first-time buyers in areas in the South-East such as Southend.
It is bad enough for a young couple who are first-time buyers when both are working, but when the second child arrives the wife must almost inevitably give up work, and then the couple cannot afford the mortgage repayments. I regularly have in my housing advice bureau people who cannot afford to live in the properties which they are seeking to buy, and who want to sell the house and obtain a council tenancy, for which they are not eligible.
If the Secretary of State goes ahead with his policy of giving people in the new towns and in council houses generally the opportunity to buy, many of


them will be homeless later. They will not be able to keep up the mortgage repayments, and there will be no local authority houses available to rehouse them.
We face a serious position. Costs in general are extremely high in the South-East. In addition to meeting high fuel costs, rates and so on, many people have to commute to work. The price of a season ticket from Southend to central London—a journey that many people must make—rose from £524 a year to £634 in January.
In those circumstances, the burden being placed on ordinary people as a result of this Government's policy is tremendous. That should be recognised throughout the country, but particularly in the South-East, where unfortunately many people were bamboozled into voting Conservative at the last general election because they thought that they would get something out of it.
On Thursday the people of Southend, East have the opportunity to pass, judgment on what this Government have done to date to increase burdens on people. The by-election was hurriedly fitted in before the Budget in case the position became even clearer to those living in Southend. I hope that they will take the opportunity to speak out clearly not only for their own area but for the people of the South-East as a whole, where the Conservatives have failed to keep their election promises. It will be the first opportunity that people have had to show that they believe those promises to have been compounded of hypocrisy and guile. I very much hope that when the result is known on Thursday night it will be seen by all that the people of Southend at any rate have seen the light.

Mr. Charles Irving: Unlike the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) I have no intention of making a political speech. I believe that housing is above politics.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on his vision and foresight and his ability to look at the exciting housing possibilities without making a distasteful issue of the matter simply for the purposes of a by-election on Thursday.
All hon. Members, of whatever party, are increasingly concerned with a seemingly endless number of people in distress who come to their advice bureaux and give heartbreaking examples of homelessness and the lack of any possibility of obtaining a house. The prospect for many is of the inhumanity of bed and breakfasting, and often the misery of sleeping rough, having to sleep out in all weathers, or in cars. How has this state of affairs come about? Right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches bear a great deal of the responsibility. Much of the blame must lie with them.
Apart from the natural distress that arises from present housing conditions, there is in addition the break-up of families and, as a consequence, I believe, a considerable increase in juvenile delinquency. Young kids are left to roam the streets while their parents sleep in cars. It is common throughout the country, and it is a national disgrace that the previous Administration allowed it to build up. It is even more disgraceful for them suddenly, following a change of Government, to try to pretend that all the blame should be placed on the present Government who have been in office only 10 months.
I wish to draw attention to a number of resources which in my view are worthy of deeper and more speedy consideration than developing a wholly new housing programme. Costs have got totally out of hand. Bureaucracy has interceded, with arguments between the Housing Corporation, the Department of the Environment and all the other bodies, resulting in a lengthening of the time necessary for the housing association movement to produce as many units of accommodation as could be provided if that system were improved and if some of the bureaucracy were removed.
I hope to hear from my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction that he intends to bring about a simplification of the system so as to enable housing associations to produce the high standards of accommodation which they are now providing but in quite inadequate numbers.
I refer next to a number of the other resources which I have not heard mentioned so far. I understand that about 650,000 properties throughout the land are lying empty. I said when the previous


Administration were in office, but it was pooh-poohed and shouted out of court, that much of the blame could be laid at the door of the onerous restrictions contained in the Rent Act. With the opportunity for rent rebates and other aids to people, I believe that a sensible rent structure under a fair rent system will be more equitable and will encourage the private sector to play a greater part in the provision of rented accommodation.
There are an additional 60,000 police houses, prison officers' houses and others which are empty. Local authorities, county councils especially, should be made to justify their reasons for keeping those houses empty. Over the weekend, I was glad to read that a few prison officers' houses were to be let or sold. I cannot remember all the details, but apparently the Home Secretary intervened, and a number of these houses are to be brought into use. It is criminal to allow, for whatever reason, massive numbers of houses to remain empty given the quite miserable and desperate situation that exists.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction will find a moment in his reply to touch upon the hundreds of thousands of under-occupied houses. In the council housing sector there are many three and four-bedroomed houses with only one occupant. I agree that it would be inhuman to tell the single occupant of such a house that, since his or her family had left, the house must be vacated. However, housing authorities should make more strenuous efforts to provide greater incentives in order to encourage such people to move into flats. I know of cases in my constituency—and I suspect the position is the same throughout the country—where flats built for one occupant house families of three or four when, just down the road, there are three and four-bedroomed houses with single occupants. There must be a way of providing sensible incentives to persuade people to change their accommodation.

Mr. Scott: Is my hon. Friend aware that at the moment there is an actual disincentive for people to let out parts of their houses privately because they are charged capital gains tax on those parts of their houses which they use for private renting?

Mr. Irving: My hon. Friend is right. It is a problem which I hope will be tackled in the forthcoming Budget.
I wish to refer also to local authorities, of which I have some experience. I am still a member of two authorities. It is well known that local authorities of both parties are sitting on hundreds of acres of land which cost them nothing. They have had it for years and years. There should be a way in which those acres could be split up into small plots which would attract small builders. In that way, houses could be built at low cost because the land could be provided for a nominal charge, either leasehold or freehold.
I was interested to read a report last week of an occasion recently when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, for whom I have the greatest and fondest regard, opened a house in Salisbury. It had been built for less than £15,000. Its real value was double that. The explanation was that in Salisbury the land had been provided at a nominal cost. I shall pass the relevant newspaper cutting to my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction in case he missed that report. A great deal of encouragement needs to be given by the Department of the Environment in order to bring into use land which at the moment is lying idle whilst people wait in misery for homes.
I was very glad to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State say that he intended to raise some of the restrictions imposed by the Rent Act. There is no doubt that protection for the poor and for lower income groups can be, should be and is rightly provided through the rent and rate rebate system. However, despite all the publicity given to it, we still have not got over the message to people that those aids are available. In my area, about 30 per cent. of those entitled to rent or rate rebates fail to claim them. Perhaps the Minister could consider a further programme of publicity. Very often it is those who least deserve to suffer who do so, because they tend to look upon these rebates as charity. They are nothing of the sort. They are aids as of right. There are flats whose rents are perhaps higher than they would be normally which could be made available to such people if they took advantage of the available rebates.
I support the Government's proposed amendment to the motion. With imagination, good will and co-operation, a great deal can be done in the next 12 months to reduce the miserable plight of the homeless.

Mr. Stephen Ross: I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Irving) said, but I do not share his optimism. I believe that the housing situation is likely to lead to civil unrest unless we do something quickly. Nothing on the skyline gives one confidence for the future. I agree that housing should be taken out of party politics. I think that a number of hon. Members who are present today could co-operate to solve our housing problems in three years, given good will.
Both major parties are to blame. But the actions of the Conservative Government over the last 10 months have been beyond comprehension. It is absolute nonsense to try to deal with our housing problems in one blanket measure. As the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) said, the main pressures on housing are in the South, the South-East and possibly the West Country. To allocate housing investment programmes overall for housing authorities throughout the country will lead to enormous problems. We should consider individual problems such as the length of their lists and the amount of local authority stock.
According to the recent Building Societies Association pamphlet, the average price of a house is £27,403 in the South-East and £16,845 in Yorkshire. All my children were brought up on the Isle of Wight but, sensibly, three of them have left because they have been priced out.
My second daughter now teaches in the North-East. I went there at the new year and found that one can buy a perfectly good centrally heated terrace house at Stanley in County Durham for under £8,000. The equivalent on the Isle of Wight is £16,000, and we are a low-wage area.
I am sorry that the Secretary of State has not been more daring with the private sector. I agree with the hon. Member for Cheltenham that more could be done by private landlords. If there is

no money for public expenditure, let us use the bricks and mortar that exist; we should use properly the assets we have.
I was sad to read in The Sunday Times Business News about a watering down of the free enterprise zones idea for such areas as Dockland. If there is a chance to start again, without having to unravel the Rent Acts, so that letting is left to the open market, let us try it. People will invest if they can get a fair return.
I should like to revamp the whole rent and rate rebates system. I am in favour of housing credits and a tax credit system. Then people who needed help would get it through the tax system. Without more houses to let we shall never get the mobility of labour which is necessary to combat unemployment.
A year or two ago, the Isle of Wight could have attracted skilled workers if only the housing had been available. Those concerned did not want to leave their present properties in the North-East and on the East Coast because they had problems selling them and they did not know if they would be able to return.
Shorthold it a good idea, but it will not work because no one will dare to let on that basis for up to five years. It is worth an experiment in areas where housing is short, such as the South-East, but when people know that the Labour Party has threatened to put such lettings back under the Rent Acts, no one will try it. The Secretary of State is glib when he talks of shorthold helping to solve this problem.
A growing problem for people who have houses is that they may have to sell them because they cannot afford the mortgages. I was speaking to some teachers on Friday night—and no one will ever convince me that teachers are overpaid. One of them had been teaching on the Isle of Wight for 15 years and earns just over £6,000. His mortgage is £15,000, so his monthly repayments are £196 gross—40 per cent. of his monthly income. He has nothing left to spend on himself. Bank managers are telling these people that they will have to sell their houses because they are beyond their means.
Students also face difficulties. Two of my sons who are at agricultural college get just over £330 a term. Immediately, they must pay out £280 or £290 for board


and lodging. There is nothing left, so I have to cough up—and I thought that I had got rid of them!
Students at college are paying a fair whack. This is the stupid part of the system. They pay £20 to £25 for one room and use of a bathroom, so they at least are paying market rents—but we give them no help. Student grants are too low to cover such costs.
In the short term, resources should go to authorities in the greatest need. I must make a plea for my own constituency. The population is increasing by well over 1,000 a year. Only 13 per cent. of the houses are local authority stock. I dread going home sometimes because people queue up outside my door with housing problems. Some of these people have prams and say to me "I have nowhere to go tonight."
Medina borough council on the Isle of Wight completed 87 houses in 1978–79 and has started another 36 at Cowes this year. Apart from that, there is nothing on the skyline except a brewery site on which it is hoped to start 80 units some time next financial year on a two and a half year scheme. South Wight borough council will start precisely eight flats in the next financial year. These efforts compare with a waiting list of 2,400 in Medina and 1,030 in South Wight. The problem is growing all the time; 28 families are in bed and breakfast places in Medina and four in South Wight. There is no hope.
We could at least make much greater use of short life property. Perhaps the Minister could have a word with his Conservative friends on Portsmouth council and point out that the council could make better use of the houses in Cumberland Road. In areas such as Redbridge, many houses stand empty because of road schemes which will now never take place. 'They could be taken over by short life housing associations.
There are over 80 empty prison houses on the Isle of Wight. I have tabled question after question asking when the council will be able to take them over. They should not be sold. The local authority should be allowed to take a five-year lease on them and put people in them. Yet we are told that they must be sold. We should make more use of mobile homes on properly managed sites. We

shall have to come to this. Decent mobile homes on good sites can be provided much more cheaply than ordinary housing.
Rateable value levels should be raised so that people who need them most can qualify for improvement grants. I know a handicapped person who has had to take central heating out of her house to get an improvement grant. Repair grants should he introduced for owner-occupiers of houses that are over 100 years old. Many hon. Members must have heard elderly people complaining that their roof was in bad repair and that they could not afford to do anything about it. As owner-occupiers they cannot get help with such repairs. I thought that there was a move to achieve this, but it seems to have fallen through. I want it introduced—and I will be first in the queue for a grant.
The Department of the Environment has nowhere near enough statistics, or statistics which are sufficiently comprehensive, about what is happening in different parts of the country. I have put down many questions seeking such statitics, only to discover that, for instance, the Department does not know the length of waiting lists in different areas.
If such figures were made readily available, people might be encouraged to retire to Milton Keynes instead of to the South Coast. It is a desirable place with marvellous facilities. Perhaps they might then consider the East Coast rather than the South and West. This is a free country and we cannot stop people from retiring where they want, but we could point out that house prices are much lower in many other desirable areas. They could be advised to think carefully before flocking down to our neck of the woods.
Something should be done to help those elderly people who cannot even pay their insurance premiums. One woman frightened me to death by writing to say that she was not going to pay her insurance premium because she could no longer afford it. As someone whose property has burned down, I wrote back saying "For God's sake renew your premium." Someone must help people in that difficulty. I am sure that many people are totally uninsured. The value of most houses now is probably £30 plus


per square foot. Too many people are under-insured; I expect that applies even to many hon. Members.
We should provide better protection for long leaseholders of flats. Some people in that position are in trouble in London and in my constituency, since they face repair bills that they never expected. I hope that the Minister will use his influence with the Chancellor to raise the starting level for stamp duty. A level of £15.000 is absolute nonsense; it must be raised to £30,000, if not done away with altogether. We must also raise mortgage relief from the £25,000 limit.
I introduced the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 to this House. The only person who voted against it in Committee was the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham). Conservative Members did not vote against it. They tabled amendments and I was grateful for the assistance of the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi). The Housing (Homeless Persons) Act should not be watered down. When half of all households now comprise one or two people only it is important that we should give priority to those most in need.

Mr. Shersby: Does the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) think that local authorities should be under an obligation to house people from overseas, who have no connection with their local authority, before the indigenous population who are on the housing waiting lists to which he has referred.

Mr. Ross: I listened to the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) the other day and he was talking nonsense then. The courts have interpreted the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act rather well. The Italians who tried to get a house in Horsham did not get it. The Abyssinian lady had been married to an Englishman who had died abroad and she had been back in this country since June last year. She was offered a house by the GLC but Hillingdon council challenged her to take it to court and got its rich deserts. That kind of case is rare. It is not true that the Irish are flocking in from Dublin and queuing up for houses in Rugby. That is absolute tripe. Conservative Members have done their cause no good by raising such hares.
The newspapers always take such stories up but for goodness sake I hope that we are compassionate enough to give priority to families with young children, to pregnant women and to the elderly who are the vulnerable members of our society. If we are unable to provide sufficient housing, they are the people who must have some priority. I ask hon. Members to study statistics before rushing into print accusing all and sundry of queue jumping. The vast majority of those housed under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act have been on housing lists for at least five years. Less than 1 per cent. of those who have moved into houses in the last year have been waiting for under 12 months.
I believe that some modifications could be made to the guidance notes, and that the six-month rule in some seaside areas should be updated or widened in scope. There are possibly one or two small loopholes in the operation of the Act, but, apart from that, it is not working at all badly and I am grateful for the chance to put that on record today.

Mr. Michael Shersby: Despite our disagreements I am grateful for the chance to follow the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) in this debate.
Local authorities should take a new look at the way in which they propose to deal with the problem of housing those young people who have lived here all their lives and who are now looking for a home of their own. The average price of a semi-detached house in my constituency is £35,000. That is totally out of the reach of the average young man and woman wishing to marry and start life together. That kind of problem is brought up every week at my surgery.
My local authority in Hillingdon has started an equity sharing scheme and I wish to tell the House how it is proceeding. The average young couple who come to see me usually afford a mortgage of £12,000. Some can manage a little more, some can manage less. Those are the figures from my area, and I realise that figures vary substantially from one part of the country to another. The figures are probably higher in my area because there is a lot of highly paid employment.


Whether that employment is in light engineering in West Middlesex or at London airport, young people in my area are able to earn good incomes, but they certainly are not able to buy houses at £35,000.
Under the equity sharing scheme they can purchase as little as 30 per cent. of the value of a house. Most of the property being sold by Hillingdon council is in the £30,000 price range. That means that young couples are able to buy 30 per cent. or more of the value of their house and rent the rest, though I am told that quite a number of young couples buy as much as 50 per cent. and rent the remainder. All local authorities should examine the possibility of expanding opportunities for equity sharing. Equity sharing gives many youngsters the opportunity to get a foot on the house purchase ladder, thus enabling them to look forward to a home of their own rather than having to rent from a local authority.
I should like to see more starter homes for young people. I should also like to see some of the land to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Irving) referred being sold off in individual plots to young people, on the basis that they could have a home built of a certain design. There could be a variety of house designs and house sizes to suit differing needs and pockets on the same development. We must tackle the problem of the sale of land as well as the sale of completed housing.
There needs to be a degree of flexibility in the housing investment programme grant. The price of property in my constituency is substantial and I believe that the variations in the prices of property all over the country should be in the forefront of the minds of Ministers as they examine these problems. We realise that there is a lack of land in the great conurbations, but there is land in the centre of cities such as London, and I welcome the setting up of the urban development corporations. We must develop the vacant land in the centre of London in order to rehabilitate the centre of our great city.
The cost of travelling from Uxbridge to central London is around £400 a year. That is a crippling burden for a young person who is starting work in London. Most young people cannot buy homes in

London or easily find homes to rent. We must do something pretty fast to provide homes for those young people we need in London—the young people who will work in industry and commerce and who will contribute to the life of the country when others have retired. That is a problem that needs to be looked at.

Mr. Newens: I am following the argument of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) with great interest. Can he say how the Government are in any way helping the policies that he advocates? Surely the Government are making it more difficult to put such policies into operation.

Mr. Shersby: I do not agree that the Government are making it difficult. I believe that the establishment of the urban development corporations is a major step in the direction of helping to redevelop the centre of London. Most of the land in constituencies such as mine has already been developed and green belt land is not available for development. Young people need to be able to live close to their work in big cities. I should like to see the centre of London populated once more by young people. I should like to see young mothers with babies in prams there. We need young communities in the centre of London rather than the ageing population of some London boroughs.
I believe that that problem can be tackled only by such bodies as the urban development corporations, and I welcome the recent remarks in this House of the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). The right hon. Gentleman is to place his very substantial knowledge of London's housing problems at the disposal of the urban development corporation in its dealings with dockland.
I hesitate to mention the problem that none of us can escape. That is the problem created by so many young couples up to the age of 20 who have started a family without having somewhere suitable in which to have that family. Such young couples are probably living with their parents. That arrangement may work well for a short time, but frictions eventually develop and family stresses and strains are set up when a young family is started in such circumstances. It is incumbent on young people to remember the grave difficulties which they


face, and which many others in previous generations have faced, in obtaining suitable accommodation and to try to plan their families accordingly. Young people should recognise that a happy home must have room for children to grow up and enjoy life without being crammed into one room.
The speech by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) was exactly what I expected from him a couple of days before an important by-election. I was sorry that he descended to such trivia when we are trying to consider the real problems that face those whom we represent. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham raised the debate to its correct level.
The level of rates is a major burden for home owners. The eight big spenders in London are the Labour-controlled boroughs of Lambeth, Hackney, Lewisham, Southwark, Waltham Forest, Newham, Hounslow and Islington. Brent and Camden follow close behind. Why do those boroughs charge their ratepayers so much? The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook has done everything possible to encourage them to sting the ratepayers for all that they can afford. That is intolerable. It does not make life easier for a young couple living in Brent, Hackney or Lewisham. Conservative, Labour and Liberal councillors should recognise that the level of rates is one of their gravest responsibilities. It is incumbent upon them to keep local expenditure down to a level which people can afford. Rates should not be increased just because councils refuse to reduce any of their services.
I have no doubt that in many of those big-spending boroughs there are many inessential projects which could be cut in order to reduce the rate burden. I compare Lambeth—Ted Knight's Socialist paradise—with the borough of Hillingdon. Lambeth rates are up by 49 per cent. and Hillingdon's by only 14 per cent. The reason is that the leader of the Hillingdon council and his colleagues have chopped £6 million off expenditure in the last year. For example, the ski slope on Western Avenue has been transferred to private enterprise. It provides as good a service to sportsmen as it did when it was a burden on the ratepayers. The councillors in Socialist boroughs

should take note that their responsibility is great. They must cut down the substantial burden on ratepayers, particularly young ratepayers.
I am anxious about the many young couples who seek homes in the London area. The answer to their problems is to give them the opportunity to buy their homes through a shared purchase scheme. I hope that the Minister will explain what plans the Government have for encouraging local authorities to expand that type of scheme.
I hope that the Minister will deal with the question of the land owned by local authorities which could be made available to young people. I hope, too, that he will explain his policy for encouraging young people to be more mobile and to occupy homes in other parts of the country if that is consistent with their employment opportunities.
This is a valuable debate. It gives hon. Members the opportunity to say frankly what they feel about the problems in their constituencies. I hope that we keep the debate on that level.

Dr. Oonagh McDonald: I do not agree with the hon. Members for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) and Cheltenham (Mr. Irving), who suggested that housing is above politics or that it should be made to be so. The solutions offered by both sides are political. They take into account the different vested interests. Government Members, by and large, represent property interests. They have rightly spoken at length about the needs of the homeless and of the need for young couples living with their parents to be rehoused. Much of what they have said is true. I do not doubt their sincerity. However, the problems cannot be solved unless we honestly acknowledge the differences in policy between the Conservative and Labour Parties and the implications of such policies.
I shall deal with one aspect—the rising costs and implications of the home ownership that was offered during the general election campaign. That offer, in Thurrock and elsewhere, was one reason for the large swing to the Tory Party. People were told that at last they were to be given the chance to buy their council homes. It was suggested that the Labour Party was totally opposed to that policy.


Of course, that is not true. Labour Party policy is that homes may be sold only when the young couples and the homeless about whom Government Members have spoken so eloquently have been properly and adequately housed. Only then may housing be made available for sale.
If people really want to know what the Tory Party policy amounts to and what its implications are they must examine closely the activities of the GLC since it began its sales drive in 1977. It was launched by Sir Horace Cutler, in a blaze of glory. He said that the sales policy was justified on the ground that it would lead to substantial financial savings for the council.
What has happened since? People are unwilling to buy many types of council property. They are unwilling to buy flats in high-rise blocks. By the end of 1979 only 3 per cent. of sales were of council flats. Only 16 per cent. of houses and flats have been sold in the inner London boroughs where the majority of GLC property is located. Most sales are of homes in estates outside the immediate GLC area where the GLC owns 30,000 properties. Regrettably it owns and manages two estates in my constituency.
The tenants of GLC properties in Thurrock are much like council tenants elsewhere. Many cannot take up the offer of a council house sale. In Thurrock, as elsewhere, many council tenants live on supplementary benefit. Others live on low or irregular incomes, are unemployed, or are unable to obtain a mortgage because they are aged or single parents. Only a small proportion of council house tenants in Thurrock, as elsewhere, can take the opportunity of buying a council house or flat, which they were told would be offered to them at substantial discounts.
GLC tenants on the two estates to which I referred have found exactly what the Tory promises amount to. I shall give two examples. The first involves a constituent who has given me her permission to cite her case and to explain what has happened to her. Her name is Mrs. Wilkinson, and her story starts in October 1977, when she first applied to buy the council house in which she lived and which the GLC was prepared to offer for sale. That was shortly after Sir Horace Cutler had made his great offer of council houses for sale for all.
Ultimately, in January 1979, she and her husband were offered the house at £7,990. They were offered a discount, which enabled them to buy the house with a mortgage of only £1,500. They had a good reason for doing that. Mr. Wilkinson was obliged by an injury sustained during his time as a prisoner of war to take early retirement from his job of some responsibility in the Post Office. He is no longer able to work in the Post Office, and he receives a small pension from it. He is able to do another small job as well.
The procedures were put into operation to allow them to take up the original offer. Completion date was to be 18 February this year, but two days before that the Wilkinsons received a letter from the GLC giving one clear working day's notice in which to contact the relevant offices, saying that the council—legally, of course—had withdrawn its offer because the house was to be revalued.
In other words, while the Tories may have promised people that they could buy their own council houses they gave no indication of how long the GLC would drag out the process without the tenants knowing at the end whether they would be gazumped. So much for the responsibility of which the Secretary of State spoke this afternoon when he described the Tory attitude on housing policy. Does "responsible" mean that the GLC will engage in gazumping, which, while not illegal, has been the subject of moral condemnation on both sides of the House?
I have written to Sir Horace Cutler about the plight of the couple—I have yet to receive a reply—seeking the reasons for the revaluation, which was not required under the terms of the Secretary of State's recent circular. The Wilkinsons have been given a new offer, which increases the price of their house by £800. Since Mr. Wilkinson has retired, and in view of Mrs. Wilkinson's age, they have decided somehow to scrape together the extra money in order to buy the house. That £800 may not be much to the Secretary of State or to many Conservatives but to this couple it is certainly a great deal to have to find, especially after months of anxiety.
Another letter from constituents relates similar experiences. I will not give the constituents' name, since I have not


yet had the opportunity to seek their permission to do so. Their house was assessed in May 1978 at a market value of £10,170. A 30 per cent. discount was offered for their agreeing not to sell for eight years, which brought the price down to just over £7,000—a figure that they accepted. In November 1979 their hopes were raised even further when the GLC said that they qualified for a 50 per cent. discount, bringing the price to just over £5,000, which, once again, they accepted. Finally, the GLC issued a new offer which put the price up to £6,410. Once again the GLC was guilty of long bureaucratic delays. It showed no honour and no responsibility towards the would-be purchasers, but it showed a willingness to engage in gazumping.
GLC tenants have therefore had the opportunity to see what Tory policies amount to over a three-year period. I have cited the example of two cases involving my constituents, but a number of revaluations are taking place throughout the GLC area. It is difficult to get the precise number. The revaluations range from 1,300 to 4,000. A large number of tenants, like my constituents, have undergone long and protracted negotiations without knowing what the ultimate purchase prices of the houses would be, what size of mortgages they would have to arrange, and what sort of repayments they would have to make.
The Secretary of State is well aware of what is happening in the GLC and elsewhere. However, in reply to parliamentary questions he has told us that he has no idea how long local authorities are taking to negotiate the sale of council houses and that he this no note in of how many revaluations are being issued. He does not know how many tenants are placed in the position of my constituents whose problems I have described. Is the right hon. Gentleman adopting a responsible attitude on housing policy when he cannot take the trouble to secure these two vital pieces of information, particularly since this is supposed to be his great policy for extending home ownership?
I hope that the electors in Southend this week and elsewhere in the future will realise just what a con Tory promises are. The Tories are compelled and prepared to act legally, but they are

not prepared to act responsibly to ensure that their actions towards their tenants are morally right. So much for the notion of extending home ownership at prices that people can afford. People are faced with uncertainty and irresponsibility on the part of Tory-controlled local authorities, aided and abetted by the Secretary of State.

6 pm

Mr. John Heddle (Lichfield and Tam-worth): Deception is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtues. The Opposition motion is deceptive and has absolutely no virtue. It is deceptive because it implies that the problems presently visited upon home owners, upon tenants and upon those seeking to buy their own homes or seeking to rent flats and houses are the fault of the present Government. There is no virtue in such a deception.
We heard the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hatters-ley) talk about high mortgage interest rates, and depressing they are, too, but this Government inherited an economic situation created by his Administration's pre-election spending bonanza which is now working through the economic system and remains still to be worked out. I ask the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues why it was that during the five years of his Government the supply of private rented accommodation dwindled drastically and diminished by 125.000 homes per year. He knows that the only way to mobilise our static and wooden work force, locked in their homes because of the dead hand of rent control, and give the mobility that our stagnant economy so desperately needs is to give people a choice—the choice whether to rent or to buy.
Instead of encouraging builders to build homes for sale, the Labour Government pursued the dogmatic path of land nationalisation by implementing the extravagant and self-destructive Community Land Act, which, happily, is now being dismantled by the present Government. That Act caused the supply of building land to dry up, causing builders to go out of business because there was no land on which they could build new homes, which meant that the demand for new homes, particularly among first-time buyers, exceeded supply, which in turn


meant that during those five disastrous years between 1974 and 1979 house prices rocketed by an average of 30 per cent. per annum, a point conveniently missed by the right hon. Gentleman in his opening speech.
Instead of encouraging landlords to make private rented accommodation freely available on the open market, to give an opportunity to those who could not afford to buy or who did not wish to buy their own homes, the Labour Government enacted the Rent Acts of 1974 and 1977.
It is no wonder that the supply of private rented accommodation dried up. It is no wonder that the housing waiting lists, about which hon. Members on both sides have spoken, grew out of all proportion during those five years. It is no wonder that homelessness has risen to astronomical proportions, and it is no wonder that the right hon. Gentleman's Government were forced to enact the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977.
I join the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) in throwing out a challenge to the Opposition. Because of their stubborn refusal to acknowledge that rent control strangles the supply of homes to rent and increases human misery, we shall never solve our housing crisis unless and until some brave and moderate voices on the Opposition Benches—and there are some—publicly acknowledge that the Labour Party agrees that the ultimate answer lies in a gradual programme of decontrol.
I ask the Opposition to agree that this Government's shorthold tenancy provisions in the Housing Bill are a brave attempt to breathe a breath of fresh air into the heretofore stagnant private rented sector. Furthermore, will they agree that the provisions in the Housing Bill relating to assured tenancies will encourage builders to build new homes to rent, as they did between the wars—the Wates, the Wimpeys, the Taylor Woodrows, which mixed our housing estates, with home owner beside tenant? They will be able to do so again through the provision of assured tenancies, freed from the stagnation of rent control.
I draw the Opposition's attention to their own consultative document entitled "Housing Policy", of June 1977, Cmnd. 6851 to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred earlier. I

direct particular attention to this passage in paragraphs 8·10 and 8·11:
The needs of many people… will only be satisfactorily met by renting, and under present arrangements most of them would not have a very high priority in public sector waiting lists. If the decline continued unabated and no action were taken to compensate for the loss of accommodation from the sector, many people—particularly new or mobile households—might not be able to find the housing they need.
So the answer to the Opposition's motion is simple—"It is in your hands, gentlemen". If right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will have the courage to admit that the control of the private rented sector has caused the drying up of the supply of homes to rent, the way will be found. The most effective way of easing the burden on those wishing to rent or to own a house is for the Opposition to come clean, to face the truth and to put their policies where their thoughts are—to admit that rent control makes for misery and for homelessness, that land nationalisation causes bankruptcy and unemployment in the building industry and does not help the building of new homes.
Let the Opposition admit that now is the time to cast off the cloak of dogma and agree that the nation's housing crisis will be solved only in a free and fair market place where demand equals supply. It is that challenge which is embodied in the Government's Housing Bill, which couples the aims and ambitions of so many people to buy their own council houses with the opportunity for private landlords once again to provide flats and houses to rent and so give people a choice in where they wish to live.

Mr. Allan Roberts: The Secretary of State for the Environment seemed to be outlining monetarist policies, which is usually the job of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Industry in this Government, as well as of the right hon. Lady the Prime Minister.
Strangely, the Secretary of State defended cuts in public expenditure. He extolled them as a virtue. It seems strange that a man who extols cuts in public expenditure as a virtue should, when he announces cuts, try to mislead people about the scale and scope of those cuts.
A cut of 21 per cent. in the housing investment programme turns out to be a cut of 34 per cent. The Secretary of State says that the rate support grant is not a cut at all; it is 61 per cent., the same at the rate support grant settlement introduced by the last Labour Government. If it is not a cut, he is falling down in his duties and responsibilities to the Prime Minister, who is urging cuts. It is either a cut or it is not. The Government Front Bench cannot have it both ways. Ministers cannot on the one hand claim that they are cutting public expenditure and, on the other, when they make the cuts claim that they are not as bad as all that and are not really cuts at all.
I admit that I feel for the members of the Government Front Bench. They have a difficult job to do. They were given a very difficult job over the weekend by the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), who has asked them to cut public expenditure even more but to do it in such a way that services are not cut. It has not dawned on the right hon. Gentleman that one cannot cut public expenditure in such sectors as housing without affecting services. It seems that right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches want to cut bureaucracy rather than services, so that, for example, instead of reducing the council house building programme perhaps we should sack the rent collectors who would collect the rents from the houses when they are built. It seems that that is the sort of alternative that the Secretary of State has laid before him.
Over the past 11 months, we have had policy statements from the Government which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) pointed out, will push rents higher than the level of rents that would have been created by the last Conservative attempt—the Housing Finance Act 1972, which introduced the idea of fair rents in the public sector. We shall soon reach a state of affairs in which rent increases in the public sector will mean that council house rents are higher than the fair rents assessed by rent officers on housing association properties and, indeed, for the time being, in the private rented sector in some areas.
Council house rents are being forced up dramatically as a result of cuts in

subsidies and the reduction of housing investment programme moneys for local authorities. In areas with Conservative-controlled councils, council house rents are being pushed up further as those local authorities empty housing revenue accounts and rate fund contributions in order to keep rates down, taking that choice as a result of the rate support grant cuts that they have had from the present Conservative Government.
I take as one example what is happening in Sefton, in my local authority area. I suppose that the Secretary of State would describe the Sefton council as a responsible authority. It is having to impose a rate increase of only 21 per cent. on the people of Sefton. However, a rent increase of between £3 and £4 is being imposed and there are massive cuts in services, including the most despicable act that I have ever known in my experience in local government—the closure of a special school, St. Paul's school, in my constituency, for the educationally subnormal. The children will be bussed 10 miles to a school that already has physically handicapped children in it, and they are to be educated together instead of separately. There will be massive cuts in services. That is but one example.
The 21 per cent. cut in the housing investment programme has hit even Conservative-controlled Sefton, which does not build council houses and has only a small housing investment programme. Its total expenditure for the present financial year, 1979–80, is £9,812,000. It requested £14,223,000—which was bold—but was given only £7,896,000. That £2 million deduction means a cut not in local authority house building but in local authority home loans, grants to housing associations, expenditure on improvements such as damp-proof courses, and other essential items.
There are 4,000 people on the waiting list in the Sefton area, yet rents are rising, houses are not being built, and the present housing stock is being sold. In Sefton, as in other areas, there has been a build-for-sale initiative. I am not opposed to the idea of local authorities joining in partnership with private builders or their own direct labour departments to build houses for sale, but I am opposed to that policy being presented as the means to solve a local authority's housing problem, or as an


alternative to local authority house building. It should be considered alongside local authority house building, as an alternative and a fringe activity that could help some people and increase the number of houses available for owner-occupation.
Wimpey was sold land at a reduced cost—less than the market value—by the local authority in Sefton. The houses that are being built should be sold for £16,000. However, Wimpey returned to the local authority and said that because house prices and building costs had escalated during the past six months the least expensive houses would now cost £20,000. An income of more than £8,000 a year is needed to qualify for a mortgage on such a property—if such a mortgage is available at the present time, or if a purchaser can afford the high interest rates. That scheme will not help those who are in need in my constituency.
Because of the Government's policies and because of the cuts that are hurting those in greatest need, I find that more and more people—people who are not normally involved in political issues—are complaining bitterly about the consequences of those policies and cuts. I received a letter from the Reverend David Rouch, the Minister of St. John and St. James', Linacre Lane, Bootle. He said:
I would like to bring some situations that are taking place with the parish here and are likely to continue while the present economic situation is taking place.
I heard this morning that several parishioners who have made the effort to save and to scrape deposits, etc., to purchase a house are now selling these houses to Merseyside Improved Houses so that they can rent accommodation from M.I.H. My grouse is not that M.I.H. are doing something which is obviously very practicable from their point of view, but I feel in one way or another young couples with children are being penalised when they have made the attempt to purchase their own property.
If a situation exists that causes a minister of the Church to write to me it is not surprising that the country faces such difficulties in housing. It is not surprising that this censure motion has been tabled by the Opposition.
A massive attack is being mounted upon owner-occupiers by the Government. They will be hit by high interest rates, higher mortgage repayments, a massive slump in house building, and the sale of council houses. It will be more diffi-

cult for existing owner-occupiers to sell their houses on the open market, especially those with lower-priced properties who sell usually to first-time buyers, often moving out of the public rented sector.
Wimpey, Barratt, and other building firms are opposed to the sale of council houses—Labour Members sometimes keep strange bedfellows—because it is less likely that people will buy their houses when they can buy their council homes as sitting tenants.
In all areas of Wales—where the steel industry is closing down—and in parts of Merseyside—where unemployment is rocketing as a result of Government policies—owner-occupiers are losing their stake in the country. They are unable to sell their houses, because nobody wishes to live in those areas. Unlike the rest of the country where house prices are escalating, house prices are tumbling in those areas, and the whole concept of owner-occupation is being destroyed.
The Government's housing policy must be taken as a whole. Part of it is their wish to sell council houses. Part of it is their wish to stop council house building. Part of it is their wish to increase housing costs in the owner-occupied and public sectors. On their own admission they wish to revive the privately rented sector.
They believe the myth, which they have perpetrated, that the privately rented sector can be revived by getting rid of the effect of the previous Labour Government's wicked rent Acts, by relaxing security of tenure, and by allowing private landlords to charge higher rents. The Conservative Party tries to lead us to believe that the numbers of people who invest money in the privately rented sector will increase as a result of their policies.
That is a myth, and the Labour Party knows that it is a myth. It is a myth, because we subsidise council tenants, the tenants of housing associations and owner-occupiers. While they are subsidised and the private landlord is not subsidised, his alternative will always be a dearer alternative. People will move into the private sector only if they cannot gain admission to the other sectors, if the costs in the other sectors are pushed up, or if scarcity of accommodation in the public sector is created to the extent


that the privately rented sector is the only alternative.
The Government's policies will create such scarcities in the public sector. They will make owner-occupation a difficult prospect. They will push up the costs in all the other sectors. The privately rented sector can grow only by attacking the other sectors. That is the strategy behind the Government's housing policy.

Mr. Nicholas Scott: The self-indulgence of the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) has made the ending of this debate even more frantic than it would otherwise have been. I shall try to speak briefly in supporting the amendment in the names of my right hon. Friends not least because the motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, and others, is not accurate.
The only terms in which one can judge the cost of housing, either in the public or the private sectors, is in real terms. It is not true that, in real terms, housing in either the public or the private sector is more expensive than it has been at any time in this country's history. The motion is inaccurate. It comes from a party that presided over the doubling of prices, unemployment and debt, and it appears to be a bit thick.
I want to use the few minutes that I have to address my right hon. Friend on the problems of the privately rented sector in inner London. This area of housing policy is unique in this country. I am sure that I shall carry my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) with me in what I am about to say.
Competition for housing in the privately rented sector in inner London is greater than in most other areas of the country, because the members of the indigenous population who are seeking privately rented accommodation are in direct conflict with tourists, short-stay visitors and business people who come to this world-famous city. For many years we had the process of what came to be called creeping hotelisation. Now we have many flats in large blocks in central London used for short-stay accommodation, thus reducing the supply of privately rented accommodation for Londoners.
The situation with regard to mansion blocks in Chelsea, Kensington and the cities of London and Westminster and elsewhere in central London has become a scandal. Many of these blocks are traded around companies which are not in this country, but are in Lichtenstein, Saudi Arabia and Monte Carlo. They are held often for only a few months at a time, and the voids—that is the technical term—are increased. Service charges are jacked up to provide artificial gearing and the company is then traded on to another purchaser. Meanwhile, my constituents and those of my hon. Friends who also experience this difficulty see the roofs over their heads being treated in a socially and economically irresponsible manner.
I was looking at one block in my constituency the other day. It is now owned by a company in Saudi Arabia. Of the 24 flats in that perfectly sound block, within yards of Kensington High Street, 18 have been empty for two years. The wiring is hanging from the ceilings and no repairs have been done. It is a scandalous waste of housing resources.
There should be some means of giving the residents of those blocks the right to buy, if not the freehold, at least a long leasehold and to manage the blocks in their own interests. At the very least they should have some control over the management of those blocks, perhaps by setting up some common ownership company or residents' association which would have certain inalienable rights of control.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker) has quoted to me the case of a block in his constituency, the lease of which has been sold to a company registered in Curacao, where moneys paid by the tenants by way of service charges for the replacements of the lifts and the repair of the boilers were on a massive scale, running into thousands of pounds, and were paid to the agents of the previous owner. The company in Curacao has appointed new agents, and these agents are now approaching the tenants asking for the charges that have already been paid. This kind of harassment is only too common in central London. At the very least, there should be provision for an agent, a company or a trustee, operating under United Kingdom law, to be responsible for these matters and for the funds paid


in respect of service charges to be protected if the company concerned goes into bankruptcy or moves out of this country.
There are many other proposals, on service charges in particular, and on the general question of the way in which private tenants are being treated under the existing law, and will continue to be treated under future law, which need airing and into which I should like to go in more detail, but I shall leave it at that. I simply plead with my hon. Friend, when he winds up the debate, to recognise the special difficulties which are imposed upon tenants in the privately rented sector in central London. If we want any kind of balanced community and do not want to turn central London into one vast hotel catering only for tourists and short-stay visitors, some action is necessary.

Mr. Jack Straw: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) for keeping his speech short.
It is evident that many Conservative Members genuinely believe that the Government's proposals will lead to a revival of the privately rented sector. The Secretary of State, in his opening speech, spoke of the Government's aim of halting and reversing the decline in the privately rented sector. I suggest that the Government are about to make the same mistake—for the same reasons—as their predecessors made 23 years ago when they passed the Rent Act 1957. They are about to make the same mistake for the same reasons because their understanding of the privately rented market in housing is false. It is based on the view that the reduction of security of tenure will lead to hundreds of thousands of empty properties coming on to the market. The truth is that if we take away security of tenure, as the Government's proposals do in part, and if we raise rents, it will still be economically more advantageous for landlords to seek to sell into owner-occupation than to rent.
Those who doubt what I say should look with care at the words of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) when, 24 years ago, he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. In moving Second Reading of the Rent Bill he used language that was almost the same as that used by the Secretary of

State this afternoon. The right hon. Member for Down, South said:
It will halt the drain upon rented accommodation, it will release additional accommodation which is under-used or wasted … and it will give to persons who are moving or setting up home the opportunity to find accommodation in the market."—[Official Report, 21 November, 1956; Vol. 560, c. 1775.]
The belief—I am sure that it was genuine—was that the Rent Act 1957 would lead to an increase in the supply of rented accommodation. What actually happened? In the four years following the passage of the 1957 Act the privately rented sector declined at twice the rate at which it had declined after the passage of the 1954 Rent Act, which brought back security of tenure.
Between 1951 and 1956, privately rented accommodation declined by about 180,000 a year. After the passage of the 1957 Act it declined by a staggering 325,000 a year. But between 1966 and 1971, when the Labour Government's Rent Acts were back in force, the decline had been halted to some extent and was back to 140,000.
Whatever the genuineness of the Government's intentions, the truth is that their proposals in the Housing Bill and other measures to revive the rented sector will not lead to that revival. Instead, they will lead to an increase in rents, to a reduction in security for private sector tenants and to an increase in waiting lists and potential misery. They will not lead to the revival of the privately rented sector that the Government seek.
Southend, East has been on the agenda today. When I was in Southend last week it was noteworthy that Conservative canvassers were not going out of their way to draw to the attention of the electorate just how valuable these proposals in the Housing Bill would be. It is not surprising, because 15,500 households in Southend are in the privately rented sector. About 24 per cent. of households in Southend—almost twice the national average—are privately rented. The Conservatives in Southend know, even if the Conservatives in the House do not know, that the Housing Bill's proposals on the private sector will lead to an increase in misery for those 15,500 private tenants in Southend because of higher rents and worse accommodation.
It is true that some people will benefit from the Government's proposals on the privately rented sector. We had a foretaste of who those people would be in The Sunday Times Business News last Sunday. In the column headed "What's Up.", under the heading
Living with a hot property",
we were told:
The Housing Bill now making its way towards the statute book spells good news for the few property companies which have retained substantial residential portfolios. Top of the list are the Bradford Property Trust … already worth more than 250p a share against a share price of 172p. The Bill, allowing shorter leases and more regular rent increases in specific cases, will push up the asset figure even further.
It is clear from The Sunday Times, just as it was from the document that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) found on the train, that the property speculators aim to benefit from the Government's proposals. In the privately rented sector, just as in the council and owner-occupied sectors, there is a staggering gap between the promise and the performance of the Government. Owner-occupiers were promised lower mortgage rates but they have discovered higher mortgage rates. Council tenants were promised the right to buy their houses but, as we have heard, that right has in many cases been rendered otiose by the bureaucratic delays of authorities such as the GLC.
In future, we shall find that this Secretary of State, far from being the man who helped the housing situation, will go down as the man who brought housing back to the kind of crisis proportions that existed in the 1950s. Under Labour, waiting lists were getting shorter, but the right hon. Gentleman will end his time as Secretary of State as the man who reintroduced into housing lengthening waiting lists of hundreds of thousands of people.

Mr. Gerald Kaufman: The country today faces the gravest housing crisis in the political lifetime of any hon. Member. That of itself is a grim enough truth. Even more offensive is the fact that this crisis has not come about by accident. It is the direct consequence of the deliberate policies of the Tory Government.
This afternoon the Secretary of State met the challenge of that indictment head-on in his characteristic way. He decided to make a speech about several other subjects. Yet the fact is that this is the first Government for a generation and more who have simply decided not to have a house building programme. The Secretary of State was quite open about it last month when he made his statement on housing public expenditure. The House will recall that statement. It was the one in which the right hon. Gentleman, in his inventive way with statistics, pretended that the cut in housing investment was 21 per cent., rather than the 33·4 per cent. cut in local authority investment that was revealed by closer examination of the figures. The right hon. Gentleman said then:
The emphasis of public sector housing policy now must be to meet a particular need, such as those of the elderly and the handicapped … rather than on the general provision of new houses … In future, growth must be based increasingly on the private sector and homes for sale."—[Official Report, 21 February 1980, Vol. 979, c. 667–8.]
That announcement came as a blow not only to families on council waiting lists but to private builders as well. For months before the general election last year those worthy gentlemen had littered the country with leaflets and posters opposing nationalisation of the building industry, but with the Secretary of State's statement they woke up to the realisation that their profits depend on public expenditure.
Even before his statement, in January, those gentlemen had issued a stern warning to the Secretary of State. Mr. Basil Gwyn, the chairman of the National Council of Building Material Producers had said:
Building material producers are concerned about the possible further decline of house building in the light of the rumoured cuts in Government money for Councils' housing investment. The Government should consider the serious consequences of a substantial decline affecting the housebuilding industry and its suppliers at a time when the expected improvement in the private sector is small.
That was before the Secretary of State made his statement about housing investment. The situation has got worse since, and today it has been announced that the builders have asked the Chancellor for special help in his Budget. Mr. Ronald


King, the president of the House-Builders Federation, has said that
urgent measures had to be taken if private housebuilding output was to expand and begin to fill the gaps that will be caused by the recent cuts in public sector building".
The only consistent and reliable demand for the services of these building companies is a steady programme of council house building. In building for home owners they had to depend on that Friedmanite concept called "the market". The market depends on demand, and that other Friedmanite concept known as "monetarism" has inflicted a body blow on demand. When the Labour Government were in office, demand for homes for sale was buoyant.
Last summer, soon after taking office, the Minister for Housing and Construction paid a tremendous tribute to the achievements of Anthony Crosland and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore), when he said:
Owner occupiers now account for about 55 per cent. of all households in England and Wales.
That was the result of five years of Labour Government. The Minister went on
amongst couples in their thirties about 70 per cent. are now owner-occupiers.
Much of that revolution also took place during five years of Labour Government. Indeed, it was because of the profits that they piled up under Labour that the building industry could afford to finance its anti-nationalisation campaign. But things are now very different. The builders have today asked for a cut in minimum lending rate. When Labour was in office, MLR stood at 14 per cent. or more for 127 out of 1,887 days during which they held office. Under the Conservative Government MLR has stood at 14 per cent. or more for 272 out of the 311 days in which they have been in office. Yet it was the Prime Minister who, in opposition, declared that
an increase in interest rates to 14 per cent. is a potential disaster for home buyers… it is the home buyer and the small business who are having to pay the price for the Government's economic failure."—[Official Report, 8 February 1979; Vol. 962, c. 550.]
It was the Prime Minister who declared in those unforgettable words:
Our plans for a 9½per cent. mortgage are absolutely unshakeable."—[Official Report, 26 November 1979; Vol. 974, c. 951.]

Those words were also spoken in opposition, but in government all that the right hon. Lady could say a couple of weeks ago in the censure debate was:
The mortgage rate had to go up in spite of our efforts to get Government borrowing down."—[Official Report, 28 February 1980; Vol. 979, c. 1597.]
The absolutely unshakeable Opposition spokesman had, as Prime Minister, become the poor, weak victim of circumstances.
It is no wonder that it was to the Prime Minister personally that this letter was addressed, courtesy of the "Your Letters" page of the Daily Express.
When I voted Tory at the last election I did not expect a magic wand to be waved and for things to miraculously improve overnight. As someone said the situation would become worse before it improved. However, I did not expect to have to sell my home within eight months of Mrs. Thatcher taking over, which is what will happen now that the building society has put up its rate to 15 per cent. without extending the repayment period. Because we live in a slightly larger than average house, people assume that we are well off. But all we have is our monthly income. Our savings went years ago and with the mortgage increase coupled with the forecast of a huge rates rise there will not be enough to go round.
That letter was headed:
Now I can't afford to keep my house. What has Maggie done to us?
The only slim comfort for that disillusioned Tory voter and for the 5¼ million others who are buying their homes on a mortgage is that they are not alone in their misfortune. It is true that the Government have put up their mortgage repayments by a whopping 20 per cent. But if those people were council tenants they would have to pay 28 per cent. more in rent, for that is the guideline that has been laid down by the Secretary of State. It represents an increase in the coming years of £1·80 a week over the present average council rent of £6·56.
The Secretary of State is trying to pretend that that is the kind of increase that would or should have taken place under Labour. He was at it again this afternoon. In his statement last month he talked about a commitment in the previous Government's Green Paper to increased rents in line with earnings.
The Secretary of State suffers from two incorrigible tendencies and he will have to try to do something about them. The


first is a reckless and chronic urge to seek to mislead the House. The second tendency is, if anything, even more serious for a politician so blatantly on the make. Not only does he fail in his attempts to mislead, but the failure is too easily exposed.
The Labour Government had no commitment to increase rents in line with earnings. The foreword to the Green Paper, in any case, pointed out that it was no more than a consultative document. [Interruption.] Yes, that is what Green Papers are for. It gave no such commitment, but simply said:
The Government consider that over a run of years rents should keep broadly in line with changes in money incomes.
When questioned by the right hon. Gentleman about the Green Paper my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar said quite flatly:
I do not envisage that increases in rents will be higher under the future formula than they have been in the past two or three years."—[Official Report, 28 June 1977; Vol. 934, c. 252.]
In the three years previous to my right hon. Friend's statement rents had risen at something like half the rate of rise in average earnings.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: rose—

Mr. Kaufman: If the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) wishes to ask me whether I have figures for specific local authorities, my answer is that I am not able to produce them, but I shall be glad to give way to him.

Mr. Bottomley: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I want only to put to him the question that I put earlier to his right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). Is he able to give the proportion of rent to average earnings today, five years ago and 10 years ago? That would seem to get to the heart of the motion on the Order Paper.

Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Gentleman is asking for a dogmatic statement of the kind of proportion of earnings that rents should represent. That is the kind of proportion that the Government are seeking to lay down. In our consultative document we indicated broad guidelines.
I have already quoted the record from 1974 to 1977. I shall now quote the

record from 1977 to 1979. It shows that in the two years following my right hon. Friend's statement average earnings rose by 28 per cent., while average rents rose by 14 per cent. Rents were up half as much as earnings. Rents went up half as much in two years as the Secretary of State is ordering the councils to raise them in one year. The right hon. Gentleman is forcing council rents up this year at four times the rate at which they rose in Labour's last two years. That simple fact should be noted by every one of the country's 6 million council tenants.
The Secretary of State claimed that, under Labour, council house building fell because rents did not go up enough. His policies are forcing rents up higher than ever before, but they are forcing building down lower than ever before. The higher rents that he is forcing on local authorities are not being used to finance more new houses, because there will be fewer new houses. The Secretary of State's logic is as threadbare as his policies.
It looks as though private tenants will suffer just as severely as council tenants, because the Housing Bill makes two attacks on private tenants. First, it ends rent control for the 200,000 tenants who still benefit from it. Secondly, it lays down that all 2 million private and housing association tenants should in future have their rents put up every two years, instead of every three years as at present.
It is even possible to gauge the rough scale of the rent increases for these tenants that the Government are expecting. For the financial year 1978–79 the cost of rent allowances for those tenants was £84 million. Now the Government are budgeting for an additional £72 million in rent allowances for the year 1982–83. That means that the Government are anticipating that their legislation will put up the cost of rent allowances for private and housing association tenants by 86 per cent. That is a frightening pointer to rent increases of the kind that private tenants can expect.
But none of this should come as any surprise, for Ministers at the Department of the Environment seem to be obsessed with forcing up rents. Only a few weeks ago the Under-Secretary of State delivered a tirade against Manchester city council for not putting rents up enough. That same week the Minister for Housing


and Construction told the House that rent controls should have been ended years ago. The Secretary of State has bitterly attacked what he describes as the manifest consequences of holding rents down artificially over long periods.
The only occupant of the Government Front Bench who does not seem to be fully persuaded of the need to increase rents is the Attorney-General. During the weekend the nation was moved to read of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's struggle against his landlord's attempt to put up his rent by more than seems justified. Labour Members commend the Attorney-General for standing up for his rights as a tenant. We are gratified that he is availing himself of the protection afforded by Labour's Rent Acts. We believe that his example will be an inspiration to countless humbler tenants who otherwise might not have the courage to resist grasping landlords. But if the Attorney-General is rightly fighting against a rent increase for himself, why will he be voting tonight in favour of rent increases for millions of others?
Millions of families in towns and cities throughout Britain are suffering as a result of the Government's housing policies. Let us pluck one such town out of the air. For the sake of argument, let us call it Southend-on-Sea. In Southend, thousands of mortgagors are numbered among those who, as the Financial Times has put it, are the losers under the Government's economic policies—those on earnings of less than twice the national average, and in particular young house buyers.
In Southend there are 17,000 private tenants who will within the next three years, face rent increases of 80 or 90 per cent., thanks to Tory Government policies. In Southend there are 8,800 council tenants who face rent increases of 28 per cent. in the next financial year because the housing department there assures me that it is abiding by the Government's formula on rent increases. To show that it means what it says, Southend council is putting up rents four weeks today by an average of £1 a week. A 13 per cent. rent increase will be the Prime Minister's Easter egg for the council tenants of Southend.
The Government prate on about their belief in cutting taxes, but their rent and

mortgage increases are tax increases. What is more, they are increases in direct taxation, because householders have no choice—they have to pay them. They are big increases. For council tenants over the coming year it is a tax increase of £560 million. For home owners it is even greater—a tax increase of £996 million.
That is the measure of the Government's failure in housing, and that is why we ask the House to vote for the motion tonight.

The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. John Stanley): The debate has been conspicuous for a number of things, not least the number of aspirants to the post of housing director for the borough of Southend.
The right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), when he made his remarks about housing cuts, did not remind us of his own experience in that area. By way of balance, he might have pointed out that he was a member of a Government who reduced the housing programme by half. He was a member of a Government who reduced capital expenditure on housing by more than £2,000 million in real terms, and he was a Minister in the Department of the Environment when net capital expenditure fell by more than £900 million over two years.
I know that the right hon. Gentleman, when in that post, bore the burden of collective responsibility fairly lightly on his shoulders. I recall a remark that he made in 1974:
It is clear that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, for obvious reasons, would like every Department to spend as little as possible. We are hoping to confound my right hon. Friend. I have gone round the country addressing special conferences of local authorities urging them to build far more houses and put my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in trouble.—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 5 December 1974; c. 180.]
The local authorities chose not to listen to the right hon. Gentleman and the housing programme collapsed over the next four years. I am only sorry that he did not indicate that over the last four years of the Labour Government the housing programme fell every year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Irving) made an important


speech which was appreciated, I believe, by the whole House. He has great experience both of local authority and housing work. I share the concern he expressed about the multiple bureaucratic processes that housing association projects have to go through. As he may know, I have set up a working party with the Housing Corporation and the National Federation of Housing Associations, which I hope will be reporting shortly. It is one of our major objectives to tackle and simplify that problem within the next few months.
I also agree with what my hon. Friend said about under-occupancy. I am sure that he will welcome the provisions in the tenants' charter of the Housing Bill under which all local authority tenants, housing association tenants and new town tenants will have the right both to sublet and to take in lodgers. I also agree with what he said about the need to improve the take-up of rent allowances. He may like to know that at this moment we are conducting a national campaign to improve the take-up which is running in the national newspapers and on regional television.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) made an important contribution. I should be grateful if he would provide me with the details of the mansion blocks to which he referred. I should like to examine as closely as I can the position there, to see whether the service charge provisions of the Housing Bill should be reconsidered in the light of the information that he provides for me. I am grateful to him for having raised that matter.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) suggested that it was nonsense to refer to the levels of underspend under the previous Administration. But, if we are to have a serious debate about cuts, particularly the percentages of cuts, it is important that the House should be aware of the extent to which hundreds of millions of pounds of public money went unspent on the housing programme. In the last two years of the Labour Government the housing capital programme was underspent by nearly £800 million. If that does not indicate the scope of the wastage, I do not know what does. I am aware that Opposition Members are in-

clined to say that it was all due to Conservative-controlled council's underspending, but I should like to give them the facts.
Let us look, for example, at what went on in certain local authorities. Let us look at the local authorities in the constituencies of the then Housing Ministers in the Department of the Environment. For example, was Tower Hamlets using every penny of the multi-million pounds that was being pushed in its direction by the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore)? It was not. That authority was £6·6 million underspent over those last two years. Going to the other side of London, to Brent, was that authority spending every penny of the millions that the right hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Frecson) was giving to it? The answer is that it certainly was not. That authority let £6·7 million go down the drain.
The background to the housing cuts about which we have heard so much today is that in the two years up to the last general election public resources were not being used, and they could not even be used in the constituencies of the Housing Ministers.
The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook referred to Sheffield. I should like to give him the full background to the position there, as he specifically referred to that city. In 1978–79 Sheffield underspent by £4½ million. Was that reflected in that city's allocation for the following year? No, it was not. Up went the allocation once again. Then a remarkable thing happened. The financial profligacy of the Department of the Environment Ministers at that time was so self-evident that the Labour councillors in Sheffield felt compelled to write to the Department actually asking for their allocation to be cut. If the House has any doubt about that, I refer to the letter dated 27 March last year—less than a year ago—from the director of Housing in Sheffield to the Department of the Environment in which he said:
The council has instructed me to write informing you that it will not require an allocation in excess of £25 million for its capital expenditure under the housing investment programme for the financial year 79–80.
That was an authority that already had an allocation of £32½ million.
The essential background to the cuts we have had to make is that there were


hundreds of millions of pounds raised from the taxpayers and so much money was going out that it could not be used by the local authorities.

Mr. Stephen Ross: Can the hon. Gentleman assure us that, if this situation arises during his period as Minister for Housing, that money will be rapidly reallocated to those housing areas that badly need it.

Mr. Stanley: I am glad that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) has made that point. That is one of the reasons why in this next financial year we have moved to a single block system—to ensure that local authorities have the maximum freedom to spend their allocations.
I turn now to the points made about the mortgage rate. The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook and the hon. Members for Harlow (Mr. Newens) and for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) referred to this matter. What we have not heard at any time during the debate is how the Opposition square their call for interest rates, and therefore mortgage rates, to go down with their repeated calls for virtually every item of public expenditure to be increased. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick reeled off a number of days. The days that I was hoping he would reel off were the number of days that MLR would have to stay at its present level if the public expenditure commitments of the Opposition were implemented. One cannot keep track of the number of commitments for increasing public expenditure, but in the past six months the Opposition have made commitments to increase expenditure on housing, education, social benefits, the National Health Service, steel, overseas aid and, no doubt, a great deal more.
The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook has been doing his bit to increase the borrowing requirement and therefore further increase interest and mortgage rates. I see that he said in his speech to the Labour Party local government conference last month:
We must reassert our reputation as the public expenditure party.
If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that he can carry conviction by making speeches outside the House beating the drum for more public expenditure and then making speeches in the House call-

ing for lower interest rates, he is deluding nobody but himself.
Much of the debate has been taken up with the problems of first-time buyers. Here the position of the Opposition is ambivalent, to put it mildly. The Opposition are wringing their hands about the problems of home owners when Labour councillors up and down the country are denying thousands of council tenants the chance to become home owners. The Opposition are complaining about housing costs when the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook has himself been urging Labour councils to make house purchase for council tenants as expensive as possible. This is what he said recently:
I hope no Labour councils will anticipate the Housing Bill's passage by being prepared to sell council houses before the Bill receives Royal Assent.
That means that every council tenant will have to pay more and yet the Opposition are complaining about housing costs.
The Opposition say in their motion that it is more expensive to buy now than at any other time in our history. Yet they are committed to withdrawing access to home ownership to council tenants on a bigger scale than ever before.
I return to the comments of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick and his comments about rents. He said —and this was particularly interesting—that the Labour Party was not committed to maintaining the increase in rents in line with earnings. But the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook said in the house on 15 January:
We pledged ourselves—and we kept our pledge—to keep rent increases and levels of earnings increases in line."—[Official Report, 15 January 1980; Vol. 976, c. 1465.]
That is what he said. The only thing about that was that the right hon. Gentleman was not correct because in the period of the last Government they did not keep the increase in earnings and the increase in rents anything like in line. In fact, when the Labour Government left office rents were lower in proportion to average earnings than at any time in the past 20 years, and on the available figures they were probably lower than at any time since the Second World War.
In fact, during the term of office of the last Government we saw a massive


switch in public expenditure away from capital expenditure programmes towards rent subsidies. At least one Labour Member foresaw the havoc this would cause to housing revenue accounts. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) wrote a most illuminating pamphlet entitled "Do we need Council Houses?" in which he said that this switch would "play havoc" with housing revenue accounts. One has only to look at the housing revenue accounts of certain London boroughs to see exactly what sort of havoc has been created by holding rents down and not maintaining them in line with earnings.
A most important point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham on the question of empty houses. He is right, and I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House would want us to do everything possible to bring empty houses back into use. I must refer the right hon. Member for Spark-brook to the fact that there is a conspicuous number of authorities—mainly Labour—which have very large numbers of empty houses. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will approach the Labour leaders in those London boroughs which, on their own figures, have more than 2,000 empty dwellings. I hope that he will approach the Labour leader in Camden about the 2,263 vacant dwellings there and the Labour leader in Southwark about the 3,024 empty houses there. Further, in Lambeth there are 3,250 empty houses and in Islington there are 3,519.
The debate has brought out vividly the inconsistency in the Opposition's approach to the question of housing costs. They have complained about mortgage

interest rates, yet they have made insistent calls for increased public expenditure which can only send mortgage rates still higher. They have complained about housing costs being the highest ever when Labour councillors are adding massively to those costs by imposing the most swingeing increases in rates. They have complained about the rent guidelines, but having spent five years in Government they did not have the courage to implement their own policies. They have complained about the shortage of rented accommodation when they have done nothing whatever to revive the private rented sector and they have halved the programme in the public sector. They have complained about insufficient funds, yet they have refused to add to their allocations by selling council houses. They claim that it is difficult for people to buy houses—and I do not disguise in any way the 15 per cent. mortgage interest rate—but council house sales are running at an all-time record level, the number of local authority mortgages in the last six months was actually higher than for the last four years and some 200,000 more people have become home owners since we came into office. The Opposition say that they are concerned about the problems of first-time buyers, yet their one and only housing policy commitment has been to say that they will withdraw the right to buy from 6 million council tenants.

I suggest to the House that if ever an Opposition motion deserves to be thrown out, it is this one.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 251, Noes 309.

Division No. 218]
AYES
[7.04 pm


Abse, Leo
Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Conlan, Bernard


Adams, Allen
Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Cook, Robin F.


Allaun, Frank
Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)
Cowans, Harry


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Brown, Ron (Edinburgh, Leith)
Crowther, J. S.


Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest
Buchan, Norman
Cryer, Bob


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Cunliffe, Lawrence


Ashton, Joe
Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Cunningham, George (Islington S)


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Campbell, Ian
Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Campbell-Savours, Dale
Davidson, Arthur


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Canavan, Dennis
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)


Beith, A. J.
Cant, R. B.
Davies, Ifor (Gower)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Carmichael, Nell
Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)


Bidwell, Sydney
Carter-Jones, Lewis
Deakins, Eric


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Cartwright, John
Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Clark, Dr David (South Shields)
Dempsey, James


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)
Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Dewar, Donald


Bradley, Tom
Coleman, Donald
Dixon, Donald


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Dobson, Frank




Dormand, Jack
Kerr, Russell
Roberts, Allan (Bootle)


Douglas, Dick
Kinnock, Neil
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lambie, David
Robertson, George


Dubs, Alfred
Lamborn, Harry
Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)


Duffy, A. E. P.
Lamond, James
Rodgers, Rt Hon William


Dunnelt, Jack
Leadbitter, Ted
Rooker, J. W.


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Leighton, Ronald
Roper, John


Eadle, Alex
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)


Eastham, Ken
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Litherland, Robert
Rowlands, Ted


Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Ryman, John


English, Michael
Lyon, Alexander (York)
Sandelson, Neville


Ennals, Rt Hon David
Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)
Sever, John


Evans, John (Newton)
Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson
Sheerman, Barry


Ewing, Harry
McDonald, Dr Oonagh
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)


Faulds, Andrew
McElhone, Frank
Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)


Field, Frank
McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Short, Mrs Renée


Fitch, Alan
McKeivey, William
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Depiford)


Flannery, Martin
MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor
Silkin, Rt Hon S.C. (Dulwich)


Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)
Maclennan, Robert
Silverman, Julius


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
McMahon, Andrew
Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, Central)
Snape, Peter


Ford, Ben
McNally, Thomas
Soley, Clive


Forrester, John
McNamara, Kevin
Spearing, Nigel


Foster, Derek
McWilliam, John
Spriggs, Leslie


Foulkes, George
Magee, Bryan
Stallard, A. W.


Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Marks, Kenneth
Steel, Rt Hon David


Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald
Marshall, David (Gl'sgow.Shettles'n)
Stoddart, David


Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Stott, Roger


Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Strang, Gavin


George, Bruce
Martin, Michael (Gl'gow Springb'rn)
Straw, Jack


Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Ginsburg, David
Maxton, John
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)


Golding, John
Maynard, Miss Joan
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Gourlay, Harry
Meacher, Michael
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)


Graham, Ted
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Mikardo, Ian
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Grant, John (Islington C)
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Tilley, John


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)
Tinn, James


Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
Torney, Tom


Hardy, Peter
Mitchell, R. c. (Soton Itchen)
Urwin, Rt Hon Tom


Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith
Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)
Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)


Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)
Watkins, David


Haynes, Frank
Morton, George
Weetch, Ken


Heffer, Eric S.
Moyle, Rt Hon Roland
Wellbeloved, James


Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)
Newens, Stanley
Welsh, Michael


Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon
White, Frank R. (Bury &amp; Radcliffe)


Home Robertson, John
Ogden, Eric
White, James (Glasgow, Pollock)


Homewood, William
O'Halloran, Michael
Whitehead, Phillip


Hooley, Frank
O'Neill, Martin
Whitlock, Williiam


Horam, John
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Wigley, Dafydd


Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)
Paimer, Arthur
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Huckfield, Les
Park, George
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Hudson Davies, Gwllym Ednyfed
Parker. John
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Parry, Robert
Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)
Pavitt, Laurie
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Pendry, Tom
Winnick, David


Janner, Hon Greville
Penhallgon, David
Woodall, Alec


Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Woolmer, Kenneth


John, Brynmor
Prescott, John
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Johnson, James (Hull West)
Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)
Wright, Sheila


Johnson, Walter (Derby South)
Race, Reg
Young, David (Bolton East)


Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)
Radice, Giles



Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Richardson, Jo
Mr. Hugh McCartney and


Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Mr. Terry Davis.




NOES


Adley, Robert
Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Braine, Sir Bernard


Aitken, Jonathan
Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)
Bright, Graham


Alexander, Richard
Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Brinton, Tim


Alison, Michael
Best, Keith
Brittan, Leon


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Bevan, David Gilroy
Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher


Ancram, Michael
Bitten, Rt Hon John
Brooke, Hon Peter


Arnold, Tom
Biggs-Davison, John
Brotherton, Michael


Aspinwall, Jack
Blackburn, John
Brown, Michael (Brigg &amp; Sc'thorpe)


Atkins, Robert (Preston North)
Blaker, Peter
Browne, John (Winchester)


Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)
Body, Richard
Bruce-Gardyne, John


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Bryan, Sir Paul


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Boscawen, Hon Robert
Buck, Antony


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Bottomley, Peter (Woolwich West)
Budgen, Nick


Bell, Sir Ronald
Bowden, Andrew
Bulmer, Esmond


Bendall, Vivian
Boyson, Dr Rhodes
Burden, F. A.







Butcher, John
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)
Parris, Matthew


Butler, Hon Adam
Holland, Philip (Carlton)
Patten, Christopher (Bath)


Cadbury, Jocelyn
Hooson, Tom
Patten, John (Oxford)


Carlisle, John (Luton West)
Hordern, Peter
Pattie, Geoffrey


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Pawsey, James


Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)
Percival, Sir Ian


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Peyton, Rt Hon John


Channon, Paul
Hunt, David (Wirral)
Pink, R. Bonner


Chapman, Sydney
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Pollock, Alexander


Churchill, W. S.
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Porter, George


Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Suttton)
Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)


Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)
Jessel, Toby
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Clegg, Sir Walter
Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Prior, Rt Hon James


Cockeram, Eric
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Proctor, K. Harvey


Colvin, Michael
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Cope, John
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Raison, Timothy


Cormack, Patrick
Kershaw, Anthony
Rathbone, Tim


Corrie, John
Kimball, Marcus
Pees, Peter (Dover and Deal)


Costain, A. P.
King, Rt Hon Tom
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Critchley, Julian
Knight, Mrs Jill
Renton, Tim


Crouch, David
Knox, David
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Lamont, Norman
Ridsdale, Julian


Dickens, Geoffrey
Lang, Ian
Rifkind, Malcolm


Dorrell, Stephen
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Latham, Michael
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff V)


Dover, Denshore
Lawrence, Ivan
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Lawson, Nigel
Rossi, Hugh


Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Lee, John
Rost, Peter


Durant, Tony
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Royle, Sir Anthony


Dykes, Hugh
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman


Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)
Lloyd, Ian (Havant &amp; Waterloo)
Scott, Nicholas


Eggar, Timothy
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Elliott, Sir William
Loveridge, John
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Emery, Peter
Luce, Richard
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Eyre, Reginald
Lyell, Nicholas
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Falrbairn, Nicholas
McCrindle, Robert
Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)


Fairgrieve, Russell
Macfarlane, Neil
Shersby, Michael


Faith, Mrs Sheila
MacGregor, John
Silvester, Fred


Fell, Anthony
MacKay, John (Argyll)
Sims, Roger


Fenner, Mrs Peggy
McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)
Skeet, T. H. H.


Finsberg, Geoffrey
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Speed, Keith


Fisher, Sir Nigel
McQuarrie, Albert
Speller, Tony


Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Madel, David
Spence, John


Fookes, Miss Janet
Major, John
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)


Forman, Nigel
Marlow, Tony
Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)


Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Sproat, Iain


Fox, Marcus
Marten, Neil (Banbury)
Squire, Robin


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
Mates, Michael
Stainton, Keith


Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Mather, Carol
Stanbrook, Ivor


Fry, Peter
Maude, Rt Hon Angus
Stanley, John


Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.
Mawby, Ray
Steen, Anthony


Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Stevens, Martin


Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Mayhew, Patrick
Stokes, John


Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian
Mellor, David
Stradling Thomas, J.


Glyn, Dr Alan
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Tapsell, Peter


Goodhew, Victor
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove &amp; Redditch)
Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)


Goodlad, Alastair
Mills, Iain (Meriden)
Tebbit, Norman


Gorst, John
Mills, Peter (West Devon)
Temple-Morris, Peter


Gow, Ian
Miscampbell, Norman
Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret


Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)


Gray, Hamish
Molyneaux, James
Thompson, Donald


Greenway, Harry
Monro, Hector
Thorne, Neil (llford South)


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)
Montgomery, Fergus
Thornton, Malcolm


Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)
Moore, John
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Grist, Ian
Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)
Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexleyheath)


Grylls, Michael
Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)
Trippier, David


Gummer, John Selwyn
Mudd, David
Trotter, Neville


Hamilton, Hon Archie (Eps'm&amp;Ew'll)
Murphy, Christopher
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Myles, David
Jiggers, Peter


Hampson, Dr Keith
Neale, Gerrard
Waddington, David


Hannam, John
Needham, Richard
Wakeham, John


Haselhurst, Alan
Nelson, Anthony
Waldegrave, Hon William


Hastings, Stephen
Neubert, Michael
Walker, Bill (Perth &amp; E Perthshire)


Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Newton, Tony
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek


Hawksley, Warren
Normanton, Tom
Wall, Patrick


Hayhoe, Barney
Nott, Rt Hon John
Waller, Gary


Heddle, John
Onslow, Cranley
Walters, Dennis


Henderson, Barry
Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally
Ward, John


Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael
Osborn, John
Warren, Kenneth


Hicks, Robert
Page, John (Harrow, West)
Watson, John


Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.
Page, Rt Hon Sir R. Graham
Weils, John (Maidstone)


Hill, James
Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)
Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd &amp; Stev'nage)







Wheeler, John
Winterton, Nicholas



Whitelaw, Rt Hon William
Wolfson, Mark
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Whitney, Raymond
Young, Sir George (Acton)
Mr. Spencer Le Marchan' and


Wickenden, Keith
Younger, Rt Hon George
Mr. Anthony Berry


Wiggin, Jerry

Question accordingly negatived.

Question. That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 32 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.

Mr. SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to, pursuant to Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply).

Resolved,
That this House welcomes the measures that the Government are taking to bring public expenditure on housing into line with what the country can afford, to encourage the release of more privately rented accommodation, and to extend home ownership to a greater number of people than ever before.

DEFENCE ESTIMATES, 1980–81 (NAVY), VOTE A

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to the Order this day,
That during the year ending on 31st March 1981 a number not exceeding 78,000 Officers, Ratings and Royal Marines be maintained for Naval Service.

Question, agreed to.

Mr. SPEAKER then proceeded, pursuant to Order this day, to put forthwith the remaining Questions which he was directed to put at Ten o'clock by paragraph (II) of Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply).

DEFENCE ESTIMATES, 1980–81 (ARMY), VOTE A

Question,
That during the year ending on 31st March 1981 a number not exceeding 180,700 all ranks be maintained for Army Service, a number not exceeding 60,000 for the Regular Reserve, a number not exceeding 83,000 for the Territorial Army and a number not exceeding 10,000 for the Ulster Defence Regiment.

put and agreed to.

DEFENCE ESTIMATES, 1980–81 (AIR), VOTE A

Question,
That during the year ending on 31st March 1981 a number not exceeding 95,000 all ranks be maintained for Air Force Service, a number

not exceeding 10,775 for the Royal Air Force Reserve and a number not exceeding 1,000 for the Royal Auxiliary Air Force.

put and agreed to.

DEFENCE SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1979–80

Question,
That a further supplementary sum not exceeding £68,000,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1980, for expenditure on Defence Services, as set out in House of Commons Paper No. 436.

put and agreed to.

CIVIL SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES 1979–80

Question,
That a further supplementary sum not exceeding £769,071,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1980 for expenditure on Civil Services as set out in House of Commons Paper No. 437.

put and agreed to.

CIVIL SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES (CLASS XIII A) 1979–80

Question,
That a further supplementary sum not exeeding £926,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1980 for expenditure on House of Commons: Administration, as set out in House of Commons Paper No. 438.

put and agreed to.

CIVIL DEFENCE ESTIMATES, EXCESSES, 1978–79

Question,
That a sum not exceeding £60,375,250·04 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to make good excesses on certain grants for Civil and Defence Services for the year ended 31st March 1979, as set out in the House of Commons Paper No. 435.

put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in upon the four foregoing Resolutions by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. John Biffen, Mr. Nigel Lawson and Mr. Peter Rees.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2)

Mr. Nigel Lawson accordingly presented a Bill to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on 31 March 1979 and 1980; And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 1561]

IMMIGRATION RULES

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I beg to move,
That the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules (HC., 1979–80, No. 394), a copy of which was laid before this House on 20 February, be disapproved.
The genesis of the debate is yet again the notorious statement by the Prime Minister in 1978, when she was Leader of the Opposition, about this country's being swamped by immigration from the New Commonwealth. Shortly after that emotive remark I showed from the statistics that happened to be published at the time that immigration from the Commonwealth was falling. The fall is a secular, long-term movement. It still goes on, as the quarterly figures show.
That is confirmed by the figures published by the Home Office last weekend, which show that fewer Commonwealth citizens were accepted for settlement in Britain in 1979 than in 1978. There were slightly more than 33,000 Commonwealth settlers—13 per cent. fewer than in 1978.
After our concern over the years to talk about immigration from the Commonwealth, it is interesting to note that the figures show—they are worth looking at at a later date—that immigration from outside the Commonwealth is increasing. The total number of immigrants accepted for settlement was 4 per cent. lower than in 1978. The number of people from Pakistan and the New Commonwealth countries continued to drop. The figures were the lowest total since 1974, continuing a decline that began in 1977. The number of those accepted for settlement on arrival fell by 25 per cent. Among those accepted after a time limit, there was the same pattern of a drop of New Commonwealth and Pakistan citizens and again a rise of non-EEC foreign nationals.
The figures published last weekend follow the same pattern as I dealt with nearly two years ago. The trend has been going on for a long time. So at the very beginning of this debate one thing is clear: not only was the Prime Minister wrong in 1978; she is still wrong. The figures for immigration from the Commonwealth are continuing to fall, and immigration from the Commonwealth is largely of dependants.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: The right hon. Gentleman has often misquoted my right lion. Friend the Prime Minister on the question of swamping. Did she not say in fact that the people of this country feared that they would be swamped, and is not that quite different from the alleged factual basis that the right hon. Gentleman now gives for his assertions?

Mr. Rees: I heard the right hon. Lady. If the Leader of the Opposition talked in that way in the run-up to an election, when immigration and race were good vote-catching subjects, that is what she meant. She meant "swamping". If the right hon. Lady likes to say that she did not mean it, that will be one thing, but she will not.

Mr. John Stokes: It is true.

Mr. Rees: The right hon. Lady talked about swamping. I shall continue with the argument. She said that in this country people felt that they were being swamped.

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: "Feared".

Mr. David Ennals: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that if the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, had not meant that she agreed with the fears that she expressed she would have gone on to say "This is not true. We are not being swamped"? But she did nothing of the sort.

Mr. Rees: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The right hon. Lady said it, and however she put it, she meant it. We were in a pre-election period.
It is important to get the figures right. There is one other aspect of the statistics leading to the secular decline that has gone on for 14 or 15 years. It was first seen in the White Paper of 1965. I refer to the number of work permits issued every year. In those days there were work permits and a different sort of document for Commonwealth citizens. Every year the numbers became smaller and smaller. That meant that, inexorably, primary immigration from the Commonwealth would fall.
Just after the rules were first published a Minister at the Department of Employment spoke of the changes that were to take place with regard to the number of work permits. In terms of numbers, that is far more important than what is in the rules. The argument about the rules is not about numbers; the numbers are very small. Our argument is that it is not worth the candle to give the community here the impression that the changes are affecting numbers to any degree.

Sir Ronald Bell: Surely the right hon. Gentleman recognises that he was mistaken in saying that it was only those who came in on work permits who were primary immigrants. All those who came in from East Africa were, for this purpose, primary immigrants.

Mr. Rees: I did not say that it was the only reason. I said that it was a major reason, because primary immigration was originally spawned by people who came here to work in the days before there were work permits for those from the Commonwealth. It was a different system. I believe that they had what were called Commonwealth vouchers or work vouchers.
The numbers that have come in in recent years have been dependants. It is something that the pledge on dependants given by the last Labour Government is not being broken by the new Government. I praise them for that. That would have been the worst thing to do, whatever my argument is about dealing with fiancés.
We have heard this debate before. There is no point in going over the same ground, but there are some important points to raise tonight. If it were only that the present Prime Minister talked about swamping in the way that she did in an election atmosphere, that would have been one thing, but the Conservative Party talked about having a register and a quota. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) never forgets that promise. He raises it from time to time, as does the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Gardiner), who, in the debate when I quoted the statistics, asked how I could give an assurance that immigration would go on in that way. I ask him to look at the figures for last Friday. The trend is going on all the time.

Mr. Nick Budgen: As the Tory Party's promise was that there would be a clear end to immigration as we have known it, and as the measures that we are considering will reduce immigration by only about 3,000 or 4,000 at the most, they can be only the first of many very important restrictions that we can expect in future years.

Mr. Rees: We are now hearing the authentic voice that speaks for the context in which the swamping remark was made. I do not even believe that the figure is 3,000 or 4,000. I doubt whether more than about 50 old people, in regard to whom the rules have been changed since December, will be affected. The effect is very small. Our argument is that the change is having a small effect but that it is designed to look as if it were much larger.
The hon. Members for Wolverhampton, South-West and Reigate know that other promises were made about a register and a quota. The Franks committee looked at the question of a register when the Conservatives were in opposition. They did not have to go to Conservative Central Office to obtain a view on the register. The committee considered that in terms of a fall in the numbers the question of the register and the quota was irrelevant.

Mr. Tony Marlow: The right hon. Gentleman has just said that the numbers that will be affected by the new rules are very small. Does he wish it was a far larger number? Will he speculate on what he thinks the British people as a whole would wish?

Mr. Rees: I do not. I have made this argument many times. I made it in the run-up to the general election. I have no doubt that in many parts it was an unpopular argument. The then Opposition wanted a register and a quota, but it was part of the aura of the times, into which the words about "feeling rather swamped" were put.
These proposals have been dropped, in the face of reality. Ministers realised the implications of them when they came to office. The facts were set out in the then Government's response to the report of the Select Committee on race relations in July 1978. It was not even a question of

the then Opposition waiting to get into government. The facts and the arguments were there before the election.

Mr. Budgen: What evidence has the right hon. Gentleman that the other proposals to which he refers have been dropped by the Government?

Mr. Rees: Just now, a number of Government supporters were putting their interpretation on what the Price Minister said when she was in opposition. I put my interpretation on what has happened during this Government's first nine months in office. I lay an even bet that these two proposals will not see the light of day.
To make the minimum look large is the Government's policy. It is on that minimum number, which the Opposition think is the wrong way to set about it if the Government want to do something—and we think they should not—that I am concentrating my remarks.
We are left with the proposals on fiancés, and to those I shall return. But first let me deal with some of the other changes announced by the Government.
I refer to the proposals for widows over 65 and grandparents. On 4 December they were to be admitted only if they were wholly or mainly dependent on sons and daughters settled in the United Kingdom, provided they had no relatives in their own countries and that they had a standard of living substantially below that of their own countries.
I said that given the fact that they were reasonably required to be in receipt of funds from their families here it was impossible for them to have a standard of living substantially below that of their own countries.
There was no evidence of abuse of this part of the rules. My view and that of my hon. Friends and others in the Department was that it was not easy under the existing rules to bring this group of dependants here. There was no traffic in grannies and grandpas from Asia to this country.
The Government have looked at it, and the right hon. Gentleman said in his written answer of 20 February:
We undertook in the debate to reconsider the changes proposed in the qualifications for entry of elderly parents and grandparents. There seems to us to be force in the argument


that there would be great difficulty in some circumstances in showing that an applicant was both being supported by children in the United Kingdom and enjoying a standard of living below that of his own country. I have therefore removed the latter requirement. It will still, however, apply, as now, to more distant relatives, and to parents and grandparents under the age of 65, except widowed mothers.
That is it. The one that we were concerned about a few months ago to all intents and purposes has been ended. The Government have seen the force of the argument, and they have changed their minds about it.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is not only his observations that influenced the Government? It was also representations from such august bodies as the Women's Advisory Council of the Conservative Party, which pointed out the inhumanities that this would lead to.

Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: Does my right hon. Friend agree that welcome though the changes are they still leave a situation where, even in the most extreme and compassionate circumstances, if people are not able to prove that they are living below the standard of living in their own country—disabled people, for example—they will not be able to come here? This hardship is very substantial for a few individuals. It will not affect the numbers, but it will create a great deal of sadness.

Mr. Rees: On this point about the interpretation of the words, in view of what the Government have done it is important for the House to be told the full significance of the change in words following what Ministers have said.
At the same time, I raise the matter of students. The draft proposal stated that students would have to show that they were able to maintain and accommodate themselves without working in Britain. There was a ban on spouses working to maintain students. In the written answer to which I referred the right hon. Gentleman said:
It has also been argued that our proposals to prohibit from working the wives and children of students and of people allowed to stay in approved employment could severely affect the prospects of students and unnecessarily deter people whose scarce qualifications or skills make their presence here desirable. We accept this argument and the rules will accordingly not be changed on this point.

We are glad that the Government have seen lit to change that as well.
With regard to au pairs, the Government have changed their mind about the age limit. My criticism at the time, which I discussed with my hon. Friend who had the day-to-day control of these matters, was that apparently there was abuse from some Eastern countries and so the new rules said that we could have au pairs from Western countries, Israel and Turkey, but not from certain Eastern countries.
If there was abuse, the way to deal with it would have been to deal with the abuse from the country concerned, not in this way. Much as I am glad that there is this relaxation, it does not meet the point raised by the Opposition during the debate.
I welcome the other changes with regard to applications to remain for employment from those admitted as visitors or students or for some other temporary purposes.
The Government state:
We have, however, ensured that it does not debar the employment on completion of their training of nurses and midwives at hospitals in this country, provided that the training was not financed by an international scholarship agency or by their home Government.
What is the relevance of that last part? If someone comes here quite properly to study and work as a nurse and has not come through a Government scheme, why should not that person be treated in exactly the same way as those who come through some more formal method? I suppose that such a person could be described as exercising private enterprise, as opposed to coming through her State, or an international organisation. I hope that the Government will look at that.
On the last two changes, the Government said:
The drafting of the provisions about refugees has been improved."—[Official Report, 20 February 1980; Vol. 979, c. 187–9.]
I am sure that that is right. It is a bald statement of which those of us without the ability to question those who recommend this sort of thing do not know the full import. It would be useful to know.
I also welcome the section in which the Government undertook to look again at writers and artists, and the proposal to prohibit them from taking employment.
Although we shall not win on the point about which we feel strongly, we see how debating the draft rules in advance of their being put into statutory form has enabled the Government to think again on these issues. On most of them we are glad that the Government have done so.
I come back to the proposals in respect of husbands and fiancés. There is no change in respect of wives and fiancées, because the rights of men are entrenched in statute law. The Government were unable to do anything about that without altering primary legislation. I shall return to that in a moment.
We made clear our opposition to these proposals when the Secretary of State made his statement on 14 November. We opposed them in December. We still reject this section of the rules. When we return to office we shall treat men and women in the same way. We do not accept the Government's proposals, and we shall revoke these rules because we feel strongly about them.
What is the present situation as a result of the changes in the draft rules? The Government continue to treat arranged marriages as an abuse. The more I read and re-read the debate in December the more I reject the view of the cultural habits of Asians which talks about arranged marriages as though they were an abuse. It flies in the face of the facts as we know them to be, especially in the Asian community.
In 1978 I took steps that were not universally approved to deal with marriages of convenience. Where there is a marriage of convenience, the Government have the power. If it does not work well enough for them it must be clear to them that no one on the Opposition Benches is in favour of those who come into this country by means of a marriage of convenience. However, the normal arranged marriage is not an abuse.

Mr. Marlow: rose—

Mr. Rees: There will be only one Front Bench speaker from this side, and I shall wind up briefly at the end. This is a chance for everyone to speak. I have given way two or three times, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
Why are the Government acting in this way? The numbers involved are small.

Is it as much as 2,000 a year? By the nature of the problem the numbers are falling as Asian girls find their husbands in this country. Whatever else is happening, even in the Asian families, with their strong community ties, more and more they want to choose their husbands in this country.
So the figure is about 2,000–

Mr. Budgen: It is 3,000 or 4,000.

Mr. Rees: I believe that it is less. It is bound to alter. If numbers are the Government's concern it is not a long-term problem, but it is a family problem. A girl born in this country of Pakistani parents has no problem. Her sister, born a year or more previously in the country of origin, will be dealt with differently. Men of all nationalities are dealt with in a different way, so brothers and sisters will be dealt with differently. There is discrimination within a family and discrimination between male and female. Still, because of the rules of the EEC, a German girl or a French girl, for example, who is married to an Asian can bring him into this country.
As for making changes in the nationality law of this country—we do not have citizenship in the true sense of the term—the Government have promised a White Papex on nationality law. We can return to that matter next Session. A new law in this respect, which, incidentally, will be very complicated, will not sweep away all our problems. The quicker that our citizenship law is made comparable with that in other countries the more logical it will be.
The matter that we are discussing is an example of illogicality, because we are treating the men under statute law and the women under the discretionary rules of the Secretary of State. The. Government have made changes in the rules affecting fiancées to the advantage of those born here—black and white, I accept— and of those with one parent born here. Nevertheless, in this respect the rules are still racist and they are sexist. The racial aspect is now stronger than it was before.
I referred in December to a view that had been expressed a day or two previously in an article in The Sunday Times:
There is no serious doubt that the new immigration rules are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.


That is easy to write, but that is the view.
I also pointed out then that the Government, in the other place, were at least considering whether to enshrine the convention in our law. What a curious situation, that they are considering making it part of statute law at a time when, to many people, it looks as if they are breaking the spirit at least of the convention.
Now that the first report of the Select Committee on home affairs is before the House we should have a statement from the Attorney-General. The evidence given to the Committee by many eminent jurists leads to the conclusion that the rules would almost certainly be in breach of articles 8 and 14 of the convention. Perhaps the Government do not agree about that. Perhaps it is not of great concern to them, but we have subscribed to the convention and all that goes with it.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: What about freedom of association in the unions?

Mr. Rees: The hon. Lady has trade unions on the brain. Tonight, we are not talking about unions.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: We are talking about human rights.

Mr. Rees: We are talking about immigration.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: The right hon. Gentleman said "and all that goes with it".

Mr. Rees: I imagine that in Strasbourg these double-doing MPs can do what they like.
In any event, I ask, as The Times did in a leader on 6 March:
Is it really necessary for the British Government to show itself to be in deliberate breach of its moral and legal international undertakings for such a puny result?
I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr Archer), the former Solicitor-General, will be able to speak later in the debate, because this is an important matter that we ought to consider—particularly since the Select Committee on home affairs has published the evidence, even if, for its own reasons, it did not come to any conclusion.
The genesis of these rules lay in preelection promises. We have heard it all

before. In a by-election in the East End of London in 1905 the Conservative candidate said:
The Radicals, by their obstruction to the Aliens Bill, are evidently glad to see foreigners who are criminals, who suffer from loathsome diseases, who are turned out in disgust by their fellow countrymen, who are paupers, who fill our streets with profligacy and disorder. The Radical welcomes them all.
The Jewish people who came in at that time now occupy high places—but that was said at that time.
I believe that the same will happen with those coming now—the black British—in the course of time. It will go on a long time, because there are problems, but what we should be talking about is not this miserable couple of thousand, simply in an attempt to make it look different. We are told that the Tories are carrying out their election promises, when many of them know that they are not. We should be talking about the inner cities, about programmes to replace section 11, and measures to deal with race relations problems. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against these rules again tonight.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Timothy Raison): On 4 December, after a very full debate, the House approved the draft immigration rules embodied in the White Paper "Proposals for the revision of the Immigration Rules". During that debate, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I said that in response to views expressed in the House and outside we were prepared to consider a number of changes. This we did, and the final version of the new rules embodies certain significant alterations. Nevertheless, the rules are substantially as set out in the White Paper. They were published on 20 February and came into effect on 1 March. Tonight we ask the House to resist the motion, which would disapprove the rules.
My right hon. Friend accepts that we have only limited time, and although he intends to wind up, he will do so only briefly so as to allow more hon. Members to speak.
During the debate on 4 December, my right hon. Friend and I set out the reasons why we believed that new rules were necessary and what our objectives


were. We came to power last May committed to a firm immigration control, in the interests not least of good community relations. We believe that, if we could end the persistent fears about the level of immigration, we could relieve some of the tensions that occasionally erupt. We were also concerned to check some of the loopholes that unquestionably exist—for example, in the way in which some people, nominally on temporary visits, seem able to extend their stay in this country far beyond what seems reasonable—and we wanted to start to get to grips with the problem of overstaying. We set out, therefore, to achieve a tighter control, but we have aimed to do this in a way which would be reasonable and based on common sense.
Overall, we believe that the rules embodied in the White Paper got the pattern right. Nevertheless, as I have said, there are certain changes which we have felt it right to make since then, and I should like to say a word about these.
First, we have made reasonable, and indeed generous, transitional arrangements. The new rules will preserve the position of those who had made their applications on or before 14 November 1979, the date on which we published the White Paper. I am sure that the House will readily accept this. It seemed to the Government that it would be wrong for people who had applied before the Government's intentions had been published to be affected by the changes. This is especially so when applicants have waited many months to have their cases considered.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many of the 27,000 people who are in the queue on the subcontinent are fiancés who would be able to exercise their right under the transitional provisions?

Mr. Raison: I cannot give the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) a number. It would be difficult to do so.
The provisions also safeguard those who before the new rules took effect had an entry clearance, or a limited leave to enter or remain in certain categories. Thus, for example, a business man who had already been permitted to enter for 12 months under the old rules would have his claim for a further 12 months

considered under those rules. We have ensured that where a refusal is made under the old rules any appeal will also be decided under those rules, and again this is only fair.
Secondly, we have modified our proposals relating to husbands and fiancés in the two respects which we promised during the debate on 4 December. The general approach remains unaltered.
But where the qualifying conditions are met an entry clearance will—not may—be issued to the husband or fiancé provided that the woman is a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies who was born here or—and this is an addition—that one of her parents was born here.
We had, of course, a good many representations on this point and there seemed force in the argument that people who are citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies with close links here should not be penalised simply because they were born when their parents happened to be abroad. There was a strong and natural preference for the rules to confer entitlements in this area and not leave cases to the exercise of discretion. Let me add that there will still be scope for the exercise of discretion outside the rules where a woman citizen's connection with this country is very substantial—for example, by descent from people in Crown service overseas—but where she does not meet the formal requirements.
Thirdly we have reviewed, as we said we would, our proposed changes on elderly parents, grandparents and widowed mothers. We have accepted the force of the argument—the so-called "Catch 22"—that in some circumstances there would be great difficulty in showing both that the parent or grandparent was being supported by children in the United Kingdom and that he or she would suffer a standard of living substantially below that of his or her own country by remaining overseas. As the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) said this latter requirement has therefore been removed.

Mr. Douglas-Mann: Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that it is still a "Catch 22" situation, since a relative below the age of 65—who is in exceptional compassionate circumstances and dependent upon someone in this country—is not


likely to be living below the standard of living of his own country?

Mr. Raison: This is the position that obtained under the previous Government and we are making no change.
Our proposals to prohibit from working the wives and children of students and of people allowed to stay in approved employment have been dropped. We accept that the prospects of many students could have been severely affected and that those with scarce skills or special qualifications of value to this country—-such as doctors—might have been discouraged from coming here by a ban on their dependants taking employment. Under the new rules therefore there will be no such prohibition unless, as formerly, the head of the household is himself not allowed to work.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that we have relaxed the proposed upper age limit for the entry of Commonwealth working holidaymakers and au pairs. This would rise from 25 to 27 to take account of those who extend their studies and therefore are not able to travel abroad until later on in their twenties. Let me add on au pair girls that in confining them to Western Europe —including Turkey, Cyprus and Malta—we have done no more than the previous Government did with resident domestics. There were signs that as the resident domestic route into this country was blocked, those who had used it were starting to switch to au pair status although they were not in any sense what is normally meant by au pairs.
We have also modified the provisions which govern applications to remain for employment from those admitted as visitors or students or for some other temporary purpose in one respect. The embargo on visitors or students staying on to take employment is strict. But we need to ensure that nurses and midwives trained here are not prevented on completion of their training from taking employment at hospitals in this country. They will therefore remain able to do so, unless their studies were financed by their home Governments or an international sponsorship agency in the expectation that they would return to use their skills in their own country.
I think that the right hon. Gentleman got this the wrong way round. However,

I hope that this gives him the answer that he is looking for and that he will agree that what we propose is reasonable. The right hon. Gentleman asked about the improvements to the drafting of the provisions relating to refugees to take account of points made by the London representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We have already made significant changes, but this one is principally a technical point. The rule now refers to the 1967 protocol as well as the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees.
have already made significant changes, since publication of the White Paper. They show our willingness to consider reasonable points of detail while maintaining our general determination to achieve reductions in the overall level of immigration. I believe they are sensible. I acknowledge that there is still sharp argument about our provisions on husbands and fiancés but the Government's case for making these amendments is strong.
As the House knows, the new rules will enable us to refuse an application from a man whose marriage has been contracted with admission or settlement here in view or where the parties do not share an intention to live together permanently, or where they have not met. Those are surely reasonable requirements.
Next, where there is no cause to believe that the marriage has been entered into for the purposes of immigration, our changes confine the right to bring in a husband or fiancé to women citizens who were born here or one of whose parents was born here.

Miss Joan Lestor: Can the hon. Gentleman explain what will be the position of adopted girls bearing in mind that many girls born abroad have been adopted by people now resident in this country? Will the birthplace of their natural parents determine whether they may bring in a fiancé or husband or will it be the birthplace of the people by whom those girls were adopted?

Mr. Raison: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) when he replies. These women are the ones who are likely to suffer most by having to go abroad to live with their husbands.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: In dealing with the question of fiancés the hon. Gentleman earlier gave the reasons why changes had been made. Is the House to take it that the Government have given no weight whatever to the arguments put forward to the effect that we are in breach of the European Convention?

Mr. Raison: It is a pity that I gave way to the right hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. Silkin) because I will be dealing with those arguments later in my speech. The women to whom I have just referred have the most substantial connection with this country. We have deliberately defined this connection as far as we can in the rules to avoid doubt and to leave as little as possible to discretion.
The context in which we have made these rules is important. It is a widely held view that primary immigration to this country should come to a halt. This was the firm view of the all-party Select Committee on race relations and immigration which reported on immigration in the Session before last. With substantial unemployment and pressure on our facilities and services it is right that immigration should be kept to a reasonable minimum. The trouble is that we know that through the operation of the old marriage rules we were having to accept an appreciable number of men each year who had married girls settled here not for the usual reasons but because this was their only way of coming to this country. We do not have to accept this. Indeed, it weakens the system of immigration control.
No one can seriously question the need for an effective immigration control. It is dictated by such factors as the unemployment situation, the capacity of our social services to cope with extra commitments and by the need to ensure good community relations.
But even in a situation demanding a reduction in immigration, the United Kingdom has accepted two major commitments. The right hon. Member for Leeds, South acknowledged that—and we continue to accept them. The first is that the wives, with minor children of men already settled in the United Kingdom should be permitted to join them here. Second, there is a special responsibility for those United Kingdom

passport holders subject to immigration control who are in difficulties in their countries of residence. Of course the United Kingdom has continued to play its full part in the resettlement of refugees.
It has been said that the control of immigration statistics published last week demonstrate a continuing decline in immigration. But not a great deal can be read into the 4 per cent. fall overall from the 1978 figures. The numbers are still large in absolute terms, and the underlying pressure to settle here remains high. In 1979 the decline in the number of entry clearances granted reflects, at least in part, the reduced number of applications processed. This reduction took place in those posts which have had to concentrate resources on shortening the delays faced by applicants appealing against decisions to refuse them entry clearance.
It must be said that there is great pressure to come here from many parts of the world. We have to look to the rules to control this pressure and to ensure that those who come are those whose case is strongest. The new rules on husbands and fiancés are just one example of this continuing process. The policy of restricting entry for employment to people with scarce skills was clearly being undermined by the settlement, in each year since 1975, of more men on marriage than were allowed to settle on completion of four years in approved employment. In other words, the principal means of primary male immigration has become marriage rather than employment.
This problem of husbands and fiancés is something which has of course troubled successive Governments. That is why the Labour Party, with the Leader of the Opposition as Home Secretary, changed the rules in 1969 to ban husbands and male fiancés. That is why it had doubts and misgivings in 1974, before it eventually decided to change the rules back to let husbands and fiancés come in. And that is why it was obliged to change the rules again in 1977 to deal with marriages of convenience. Despite this change, marriage is still being used as a means of securing migration.
These arguments do not apply with the same force to women entering the United Kingdom to join husbands. In the main they join husbands who are in the position of having the prime responsibility for providing for their families.


Frequently the husband has lived in the United Kingdom for many years, leaving his wife and any children behind in their own country. Men entering the country to join women settled here are, however, usually part of a quite different pattern of behaviour. They are not joining the family's breadwinner but expect, and are expected to make, a major contribution themselves to the earnings of their new family unit.
It has been said that the rules are racialist in intent. But they contain no provisions based on racial distinctions and I reject the allegation that they are racially discriminatory. The opening paragraphs of section one and section two of the rules expressly prohibit this. Broadly speaking, people from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan constitute a significant proportion of those granted settlement each year-60 per cent. in 1978 and between 60 per cent. and 75 per cent. in earlier years. Those entering from these areas will continue to be a significant part of the whole, and will probably remain the majority, whatever restrictions are placed on the entry of men for marriage. There are, therefore, no grounds whatever for alleging that the motive for these restrictions is racial prejudice. The Government's aim is to prevent the use of marriage as a means of securing settlement in the United Kingdom.
It is true that a great many people seeking to enter the United Kingdom claim to do so under marriages arranged in accordance with Asian culture and traditions. But we do not on that account accept that the requirement that the parties should have met is discrimination on racial or other grounds. Our understanding is that the customs attaching to Asian arranged marriages are not entrenched in a rigid and unchangeable code.
The husband or fiancé of a woman whom he has not met cannot reasonably claim that he has a right to enter another country to live permanently with her there. It is difficult to see how refusal to permit entry in such circumstances could cause hardship.

Mr. Jim Marshall: The hon. Gentleman has said on many occasions that wives must have met their husbands and fiancés. If he follows

through that logic, should he not also prevent husbands from bringing in their wives if they have not met?

Mr. Raison: If the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) had followed the argument and listened to the debate in December he would know that whatever one might wish to do, under the law governing immigration and nationality that is not possible. We are not changing the law, we are changing the rules. We have given firm pledges in that respect. We have not time in this Session to change the primary legislation. We propose changes in the rules. That has been done on a number of previous occasions.
It seems to be assumed that our approach to husbands and fiancés is altogether exceptional. But that is not so. My understanding is that France admits husbands only if special considerations render their exclusion undesirable. West Germany does not permit the entry of fiancés. Bangladesh does not admit husbands for settlement, nor does India, except that a Commonwealth citizen can join his wife indefinitely as a visitor. In Sweden husbands are allowed to join their wives there only if they have lived together for some time. Switzerland has no right of entry for husbands. We are far from being unique in our proposals.
I turn now to the first report from the Home Affairs Committee. It is entitled "Proposed New Immigration Rules and the European Convention on Human Rights". It is useful to have assembled in this document the principal arguments put to the Committee on the compatibility of the rules with the convention. As the House knows, the Committee refrained from passing judgment on the issue.
The Government's general position is clear. As we made plain during the course of the debate on 4 December, we have considered collectively the full implications of these proposals, including the question about international obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. We believe that we have strong arguments with which to justify these proposals if they are challenged.

Mr. Cyril D. Townsend (Bexley-heath): Does my hon. Friend accept that the overwhelming weight of expert


legal opinion is against the Government's detailed proposals? Does it not behove a party which claims to be the party of law and order and which claims to give particular weight to international obligations to move with great caution in this area?

Mr. Raison: I cannot accept that the overwhelming weight of legal advice is directed in that way. In a sense we are moving into uncharted waters. Arguments on both sides have been expressed, for instance in the other place. I accept that only one member of the House of Lords was called before the Select Committee, but another distinguished lawyer in the other place argues in the opposite direction. I cannot agree with the assumption made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend).
It has of course been said that we should now detail all those arguments. I think, however, that an examination of the evidence to the Home Affairs Committee will show that it is not as simple as that. The precise arguments depend very much on the circumstances of particular cases. There is an almost complete absence of relevant precedents which have gone as far as the European Court and from which points of binding judicial principle can be gleaned. On the whole it can be said that the petitioners against our immigration control are not particularly successful. The main exception cited, the East African Asians' case, was, apart from being based on exceptional facts, not upheld by the Committee of Ministers.
The precise nature of the arguments is thus impossible to predict unless and until a case arises. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath will take that on board. If a case did arise, there might be good grounds for denying at the start that any prima facie breach of the convention had taken place. But if it did come to a question of justifying the imposition of controls against husbands and fiancés on general policy grounds, there can be little doubt that we shall have powerful arguments to deploy. Some indication of these arguments has been given in these debates. What I clearly could not be expected to do here is set out the case that

might be deployed to deal with a hypothetical action.
The Government have all along made perfectly plain their determination to restrict immigration to acceptable levels. Can the Opposition say the same? An interesting document emerged last month from the Labour Party entitled "Labour Party discussion document on Citizenship and Immigration". I assume that this document is not yet Labour Party policy. It would be surprising if it were, since nothing on the lines proposed was so much as hinted at during that party's recent term of office. But it presumably commands a degree of acceptance within the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party or it would not have published it.
The introductory sections contain much quite unjustified denigration of this country and its system of immigration control. I find this rather strange in a Labour Party document when it is right hon. and hon. Members on the Labour Benches who have been responsible, in Government, for our immigration system for 11 of the past 16 years. I wonder what the right hon. Member for Leeds, South and for that matter the Leader of the Opposition make of that denigration. Do they agree that the system they operated is offensive in major respects?
The document goes on to make a number of proposals. It recommends wide-scale extensions to the right of abode in this country. Tens of thousands of East African Asians in East Africa, and India would be freed from the control introduced by the Leader of the Opposition when he was Home Secretary in 1968. The rules governing the entry of dependants would be greatly relaxed, thus increasing the numbers eligible to come here. These provisions would be far less tightly drawn than anything operated by successive Governments. The changes to the work permit scheme and the rules on visitors and students would undermine much of our present control.
The document proposes a more expensive and elaborate appeals system which would enable any aggrieved applicant to take his case all the way up to the Court of Appeal. It would be impossible even to return to his country a passenger refused leave to enter without the risk


of protracted legal proceedings. This is apparently only a discussion document. But if it were to become Labour Party policy, the electorate would have a clear choice between the present Government's policies, which are to provide a firm but fair control of immigration, and the policies of a party which clearly would have no interest whatever in an effective immigration control. Where do the Opposition stand? Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the system that he operated is "unjust"?

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I operated the systerm for many years in the way that it works at the moment. There is no doubt that it works against people with coloured skins and will continue to do so until the laws on nationality are changed. The Labour Party document is one that should be discussed, and it is much better to have that sort of discussion than to act as the Conservative Party has in coming up with proposals before the election and making changes afterwards.

Mr. Raison: If that is what the right hon. Gentleman thinks it is astonishing that he should have done nothing to change the situation while he was in power.
I should like to conclude by reminding the House of the overall purpose of the changes which the Government have made. There is constant and heavy pressure to enter this country. One can understand the powerful economic incentive which induces people from less fortunate countries to wish to come here and settle. But we have our problems, too. Our unemployment, the strains on our social services, and the need for good community relations, all emphasise the need to bring immigration under control. There is nothing racialist about this. We are already a multiracial society and the maintenance of stable race relations is a matter which I regard as being of paramount importance. But it is in fact in the interests of all the ethnic groups which make up our population to reduce immigration to what is reasonable and acceptable.
Against this background, the new restrictions on the entry of male fiancés and husbands can be seen as only one among a number of measures designed to reduce the scope for exploitation of the system.
Experience shows that, as one avenue is closed, so great pressure arises from people seeking to come by an alternative route. This is why Governments must, from time to time, review the effectiveness of the control and take measures as necessary to correct any defects. That is what the Government have done in the "Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules" laid on 20 February. I believe firmly that the amendments made were necessary and right and in the interests of all sections of our community. That is why I have no hesitation in urging the House to reject this motion.

Mr. David Steel: I can understand the air of embarrassment that always surrounds the Minister of State and the Home Secretary when we debate this subject. The reason for that embarrassment is that, while the Minister of State may say that the rules are not racialist in intent, they are certainly racialist in effect. Moreover. some Conservative Back Benchers intend them to be racialist in intent as well. I can therefore understand the state of nervousness of the Minister of State and the Home Secretary and their uncomfortable appearance when they are at the Dispatch Box on these issues.
On the last occasion when we debated the rules, on 4 December—

Sir Ronald Bell: rose—

Mr. Steel: I gave way to the hon. and learned Gentleman within 30 seconds of starting my speech on 4 December. I shall not do that tonight. On 4 December I made what was by my standards a long speech, and I do not propose to do so this evening.
I do not want to be churlish, and therefore it is right that I should welcome the minor amendments which have been made as between the draft rules and the rules on the question of elderly parents and of the spouses of students seeking to work to maintain their spouses in this country. The Minister of State was quite honest when he said that, substantially, these rules are the same as the new ones that we debated in December. I go fur-there. The minor concession that has, quite properly, been made on fiancés and husbands entering this country makes the rules even more blatantly discriminatory


than the form in which they appeared before us on 4 December.
The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) has already quoted from the celebrated —perhaps I should say notorious—broadcast of the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister. Much is made of her use of the word "swamping" and the fears about "swamping", but I want to quote from another part of the same broadcast because I think that we have focused too much on that one phrase.
The right hon. Lady was asked in the broadcast whether it was her intention with her immigration proposals, such as they were vaguely enunciated at the time, to seek to bring back to the Conservative Party some of the support which the National Front had been winning at by-elections. Her reply to the interviewer was "Oh, very much back, certainly". It seems that if one is setting out, as part of one's policy, to retrieve votes from the National Front, one cannot be surprised if one ends up with a racialist policy. That appears to be the only way in which one can attract those votes.
I wish to take up two points with the Minister of State. He mentioned one in the last debate, but signally failed to mention the other. He sought to intervene on 4 December when he was challenged by the right hon. Member for Leeds, South about his speech at the Conservative Party conference when he talked of fiancés and husbands being used as stepping stones for others. In c. 273 of the Official Report he quoted at length, as evidence in support of his conference speech, from a book called "The Myth of Return" written by a social scientist called Dr. Mohammed Anwar, who is on the staff of the Commission for Racial Equality.
I was a bit surprised at the quotation, and when I checked afterwards its references to Pakistanis in Rochdale and so on I discovered that it was written about immigration before the 1962 controls. It had nothing to do with husbands and fiances at present. To put it in parliamentary terms, I think that it was disingenuous of the Minister of State to produce that as evidence to support what he was saying.

Mr. Raison: In the passage in my speech in which I quoted those parts of the book I was not confining my remarks to the issue of husbands and fiances. In my speech at the party conference I was talking in a much wider framework than that.

Mr. Steel: I accept that, but the Minister used that quotation in our debate on 4 December in response to a specific challenge from the right hon. Member for Leeds, South about the evidence of fiancés and husbands being used as stepping stones. That is the answer that he gave from that Dispatch Box. Dr. Anwar's book has nothing to do with the current position of husbands and fiances. Dr. Anwar was dealing with the pattern of historic immigration before 1962 and before we had started the process of control.
May we be told how many people will be prevented from coming into this country as a result of these miserable regulations? We have asked that before, but we have had no answer. The best estimates that I have been able to get have been between 2,000 and 3,000. We are going through all this paraphernalia of introducing rules which I believe are thoroughly repugnant, and of causing an uncertain degree of suffering to families of those already settled here in respect of their elderly people, their fiancés, their husbands and their children.
The Government continue to justify their action—the Minister of State did it a second ago—by referring to the problems faced in this country, particularly that of unemployment. On 4 December I mentioned the article which the Minister of State wrote in The Daily Telegraph. He said that
the first aim"—
that is, of the draft rules—
is to reduce the numbers coming into this rather crowded island with its relatively high unemployment.
I went on in my speech—I had no answer to this, and I hope that the Home Secretary will do me the courtesy of giving an answer tonight—to quote from various publications showing the numbers of people who come here from countries such as Australia each year for so-called working holidays. From Australia alone there are between 15,000 and 20,000. I make clear at once that I have no objection to that, but I think it hypocritical to


allow that scale of employment to come in every year and at the same time produce as an argument in favour of these rules that we have high unemployment in Britain. It does not make sense.
What does the Minister of State mean when he talks about acceptable levels of immigration? What is an acceptable level? One cannot just pluck a statistic out of thin air. We are dealing with families and with individuals. There cannot be any right number for immigration. Surely, it depends on the family circumstances in each case.
Turning to the question of the European Convention on Human Rights, one should bear in mind that the rules of the European Court are far wider than those of the British courts. I speak of the British courts, recognising that the English and Scottish legal systems are separate, but evidence and material which would not be permitted in the British courts, either north or south of the border, are open to submission in the European Court. Obiter dicta—including, for example, the entire transcript of the right hon. Lady's Granada television interview—could be produced in evidence before that court to show that the motive and motivation for these rules was indeed discriminatory.
Twice in his speech the Minister of State referred to the strong arguments which the Government had to counter the suggestion that we were in breach of the convention, yet we have not had the barest outline, never mind a detailed case, of what the allegedly strong arguments are.
I wish to end on a constructive note, and I put a particular appeal to the Home Secretary. I believe that the time has come for a new inquiry, and I suggest that in this connection we might do well to look at what has happened in some other countries. I suggest that we set up a major inquiry into our immigration procedures and rules, and I draw upon three examples elsewhere in the world.
In the United States, the Congress created by statute, under its different procedure, a Select Commission to make recommendations with regard to immigration and nationality law and also to consider the social, political, economic and demographic effects of refugee pro-

grammes and to review them. It took account of political and economic conditions in the United States, present and projected unemployment, the conduct of foreign policy, and so on.
In Australia, chaired by the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, there has been a Population and Immigration Council—a very wide body including representation from trade unions and academic circles, and again with wide terms of reference.
In Canada, in the 1974–75 Session of the Canadian Parliament, a special joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons was set up, which produced a report to Parliament again covering demographic and economic factors, refugee programmes and procedures for control and enforcement.
Here in the United Kingdom, one has only to look at the evidence given by the Home Office to the Select Committee on race relations and immigration in February 1974 to see what the position is. In a written memorandum the Home Office conceded that
Immigration law in this country has developed mainly as a series of responses to, and attempts to regulate, particular pressures rather than as a positive means of achieving preconceived social or economic aims.
It is for that reason that I believe that the time has come for a wide-ranging and independent inquiry. With great respect to our Select Committee—either the previous one or the present one on home affairs—I must say that it does not have the scope to go widely into matters which are the responsibility of the Foreign Office and the Departments of the Environment, of Health and Social Security, of Industry, of Employment and of Education and Science.
For that reason, I believe that we ought to establish the only prestigious and effective form of independent inquiry that we have in this country, namely, a Royal Commission to go into these matters, to look at our national policy objectives, our international obligations and our foreign policy needs as well as the protection of the family life and civil liberties of our citizens. I believe that that would be a better way to proceed than year after year to have these debates on tighter and tigher controls on different areas of our immigration legislation.

Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood): When we debated the Immigration Act 1971 many of us hoped that it would be the end of the matter. However, it was inherent in that legislation that the Secretary of State would be empowered to bring before the House statements on the administration of the immigration rules and any changes to those rules which he proposed. As a result, we find ourselves debating further changes tonight.
It would have been far better if the 1971 Act had been a sufficiently effective instrument of immigration control to be permanent. We could then have concentrated more on the vital matter, which is good community relations. This is the overriding criterion for what we are debating tonight, and I think it right that we should remember it.
The trouble with the 1971 Act was that abuse of the legislation became possible following the concession that the Labour Government issued in 1974 to admit fiancés and husbands for settlement in this country. There is no doubt that there was abuse, and the very fact that in 1977 the Home Secretary was forced to amend his proposals showed that the abuse was real.
However, in the changes that he made in 1977 the Home Secretary said that where he had reason to believe that one of the parties no longer had any intention of living with the other as his or her spouse the probationary time limit on residence would not normally be removed. In other words, if someone was clearly using the June 1974 provision, as a fiancé or as a husband, to come to this country fraudulently, the Secretary of State would take appropriate measures.
That was all very well, but the trouble with that system has always been that it leads to post-entry verification, which the immigrant communities are unhappy about, and I think that it was that aspect of post-entry verification that led the Conservative Party to its manifesto commitment to end the concession to husbands and fiancés introduced by the Labour Government in 1974. I think it much better that the situation should be absolutely clear and unambiguous.
What the Government are doing in this proposed change, to come into effect as

from 1 March, is to take the provisions of the Immigration Act 1971 as far as they can be taken without any actual legislative changes. The relevant part is section 3(2), which states:
section 1(4) above shall not be taken to require uniform provision to be made by the rules as regards admission of persons for a purpose or in a capacity specified in section 1(4) (and in particular, for this as well as other purposes of this Act, account may be taken of citizenship or nationality).
Tonight, the existing provisions of the 1971 Act are being taken to the utmost legal and rational extremity. I can understand the rationale behind that.
The Conservative manifesto was firm about proposals for immigration control. The supporters of the Conservative Party wish to see the manifesto commitments carried through as quickly as is reasonably possible. However, as I have said already, to institute a new and fully comprehensive system of immigration control would require new legislation of a difficult, complicated and time-consuming nature. Therefore, we are adjusting the immigration rules tonight.
To adjust the rules has certain disadvantages, in that the proposals perpetuate a system of discretion and subjective judgment on the part of entry clearance officers. In my criticism of the 1977 provisions I referred to the acts of subjective judgment that the Secretary of State is called upon to make about whether a marriage is one of convenience. Under these proposals, entry clearance officers will have to judge whether one of the parties has any intention of living permanently with the other party, or whether the marriage was entered into primarily to obtain admission to the United Kingdom. That is a difficult responsibility for an entry officer to take upon himself.
I often feel that there are two classes of hon. Member in the House—those who represent areas of high immigrant settlement and those who do not represent such areas. Perhaps I should add another category, namely, those who have served on the Select Committee for race relations or the new Sub-Committee of the Home Affairs Committee. Only they comprehend the difficulties faced by entry clearance officers.
If one has sat in, as I have, on interviews at our missions in the sub-continent and has listened to the questioning


that goes on through interpreters, one is aware of the difficulties of understanding, and the difficulties that entry clearance officers face in coming to their judgments.
The proposals are comprehensible, and I can understand the rationale behind them. They fulfil a short-term need. However, I suggest that a better method would be to pursue the first objective in the Conservative proposals on immigration control, outlined in the manifesto, which could ensue from a thorough review of nationality and citizenship law. In our manifesto we said:
We shall introduce a new British Nationality Act to define entitlement to British citizenship and to the right of abode in this country. It will not adversely affect the right of anyone now permanently settled here.
If that new Act enshrined in law the right of abode as presently defined in section 2 of the Immigration Act 1971, that is, to United Kingdom and colonies passport holders and patrials, and if they—and only they—were able to bring in their dependants, that is, their spouses—I do not define the sex—and their children, once and for all we would have evolved a system of immigration control that would not require periodic amendments and tinkering with revised immigration rules.
That system would not be prejudicial to Commonwealth nationals resident in the United Kingdom because they can, after five years of continuous residence, register as United Kingdom citizens. Those Commonwealth nationals who wished to bring in their families—presumably because they had decided that they wished their home to be in Britain, and did not wish to return to their countries of origin—would have all the rights which, in equity, are their due.
I believe that immigration control on that basis would not be sexist, racist or open to challenge in international courts of law or anywhere else, but would enable us to concentrate on the important task of the amelioration of community relations and of rising to the challenge of the rest of this century, which is to make our big cities worthwhile places in which to live and places of harmony where people get on well together and tolerate and understand each other. That is the important task.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: In the last Parliament there was only one debate on the subject that we increasingly miscall immigration. Even that debate occurred accidentally. It was the result of success in the ballot by the hon. Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken).
I remember that during the course of that Parliament, there were increasing and repeated demands from the Opposition side that the subject should be further ventilated upon the Floor of the House. The Labour Party, then in office, responded by saying that this would be a suitable topic for a Supply day. I recognise that now in opposition the Labour Party has been true to its professions and has properly and rightly provided a longer time tonight for the discussion not merely of the detail but of the bearings of the document before the House.
We are only in form debating immigration in the literal sense of the term. If all it was about was literal immigration, we should not year upon year tear ourselves to pieces about the details of rules to be followed by immigration officers; nor should we be studying the small print; nor would there be the excited, almost feverish, interest in so relatively small a practical effect as that which will be produced by regulations such as these.
This debate, these regulations and the whole discussion of immigration in the literal sense is conditioned by something that is hardly ever mentioned in these debates. The major premise of the argument remains unspoken. We debate under the presence of a cloud, to the existence and presence of which hardly anyone ever draws attention. We have these debates and we engage in this legislation only because of the present and prospective composition of the population of England in one particular respect. I use the word "England" accurately. Indeed, more accurately still, I would say "most of the major cities and industrial areas of England". It is because of what we know about the present composition of that population and what we have reason to know about its future that we engage in feverish discussion of an extra thousand or more entering or being


prevented from entering this country year by year.
Opposition Members who say that these rules are not in intent of universal application, but related only to a specific description of potential immigrants, are right; they are pointing to a known fact. The rules are related to that element in the population of England which we all have in mind, and have for many years had in mind, when we have debated immigration and legislated on it.
It is a matter of much more than semantic importance—indeed, in some ways it has bedevilled discussion and understanding—that we have no appropriate word to describe that clement in the population. We call it "the immigrant population"; but that is increasingly inapplicable, for increasingly that population consists of those who have not immigrated into the United Kingdom. So, from that difficulty, we take refuge in colour, and refer to the "coloured population" or to "the blacks"; but we know perfectly well how unsatisfactory that is. After all, we are all coloured. " Coloured " in that context is a mere euphemism that betrays our embarrassment and difficulty of expression. As for the word "black", I will only say that no one who has ever served in India—or perhaps I should say "served India"—could ever bring himself to use that term.
What are we to do? We have, fortunately, some assistance from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. It has at least a term of art, clumsy though it may be—
persons of New Commonwealth and Pakistan ethnic origin".
There is at any rate a definition, not exactly convenient, but still a definition of that element in the population of greats parts of England, which is what all this is about—its present and its future. So—I hope with occasional pardonable abbreviation—I shall endeavour to use that phrase from now on.
We know a good deal—not as much as we might—about the present and future size, the relative size, of that element in the population. We know that in the areas of England to which I have referred, for as far back as records have been kept—in the case of the city of Birmingham that is for about 22 or 23 years, which

I think is the longest period for any place in the Kingdom—the proportion which the births to that population bear to total births has remained at a level of one-fifth, one quarter and one-third, where, over the years for which we have these figures, they have varied, they have steadily increased as a proportion of the total.
I should add a further point about the figures for the more recent years. We know that they are not complete. The OPCS tells us that perfectly candidly. Those figures no longer include births to members of that population where both parents were themselves born in this country. Therefore, on the definition of the OPCS itself, the New Commonwealth and Pakistan ethnic origin births are a larger proportion of total births than the fractions that I have mentioned.

Mr. Ennals: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that that is in some way an unfair method of making a judgment by OPCS. Surely it is perfectly right that where a husband and wife are both born in this country we should not talk about immigrants. Surely the right hon. Gentleman would agree that OPCS has been doing its job quite properly.

Mr. Powell: Yes, I thought it was clear that I had accepted its definition of the population about which we try to talk but for which we have no appropriate single or simple terminology; and I was simply drawing attention to the fact that the OPCS itself points out that the figures to which I have referred have in recent years increasingly understated the proportion of births which are births to the New Commonwealth and Pakistan ethnic population.
This further we know in consequence. We know it not as conjecture; we know it not as extrapolation; we know it not as theory. We know it as a fact. We know as a fact that those proportions are the pattern of the future total population of those parts of the country. Subject to very minor qualifications, such as further literal immigration, and subject to internal migration, there is no escaping from the fact that the pattern of births over 10, 15, 20, 25 years must be the pattern of the future total population, unless one makes assumptions which I have never made in this context, namely—

Mr. Wilkinson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What does this have to do with the proposed changes in immigration rules that we are debating tonight?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawshaw): I think that it is sufficiently material to what we are debating. It is a general debate on immigration.

Mr. Jim Marshall: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Order Paper is quite clear. It is not a general debate on immigration. It is a debate aimed specifically at the statement on immigration rules and the proposed changes in them.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have noted what the hon. Gentleman said. I think that what the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has been saying is perfectly in order in terms of the debate.

Mr. Powell: I am much obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Before I conclude, I hope to show the hon. Member and others that what I am talking about is very relevant indeed to the fact that the House has before it these particular rules and this particular document.
I was saying that we know, because it is the result of facts which already exist, the minimum proportion in future which that population will represent to the whole over the areas of this country which are concerned. We know that in central London it will be one-third or more; and we know that there will be a similar ratio in many of the other great cities of England.
In those circumstances, to imagine that by these rules or any others one can bring, in the Conservative Party's terminology, of which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) reminded the House, "a clear end to immigration", is totally absurd; for if there is a settled population of this magnitude, it is idle to imagine that its recruitment will not continue—I use "recruitment" as an entirely neutral word—unless we are to say to part of the resident population of this country, "You shall not marry whence you please, you may not choose or find spouses where you think fit".

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: That is just what these rules do.

Mr. Powell: I understand that. The hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) is assisting me and Mr. Deputy Speaker to fix the relevance of my remarks to the subject of the debate.
It is absurd to contend that one can bring an end to immigration when this is to be the pattern of our future population. By the very natural order of things such a population, taking it as a whole—the parts vary to some extent—is bound to involve—I almost said "to require" —continuing immigration. Therefore, the attempt to deal with the anxieties of great numbers in our cities, the attempt to deal with the fears or feelings or whatever it was to which the Prime Minister was referring, by adjustment of the detailed requirements for immigration, is not merely futile; it is either deception or it is, more charitably, self-deception. But whether it is self-deception or deception, the effect is to promote and keep alive in people's minds a kind of escape route from the future that lies before this country, to enable people in large numbers—all hon. Members know what I am saying—to say to themselves, "Oh, if only immigration were stopped this would go away. If only they would control immigration." That is a delusion which we merely feed by pretending that by controlling immigration, by tinkering with, by rendering rational—in the words of the Minister of State—the immigration rules we can appreciably alter that which, on the facts as they are, lies before this country.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Is not the fallacy of the argument of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) that when this population stabilises at 3·3 million there will not be any substantial danger such as he argued in the past. These people, though their ethnic origin may be Asian or West Indian, will be British in their outlook and the composition of this society will be different; it will be settled and harmonious.

Mr. Powell: I take it to be confirmation of the logical manner in which I was attempting to evolve my argument that the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) anticipated the ground on to which I was about to move. At least I am sure that he is with me—I do not see how anyone


can be against me—in saying that if we have such a population settled in this country it is idle to talk of "a clear end to immigration"; for immigration is implicit in the existence of that population of those dimensions in the cities of this country.
Now I come to the question which the hon. Member for York posed to me and which I say it is the duty of everyone to pose to himself. Not merely should we pose this question to ourselves but we have a duty and responsibility to declare ourselves upon it and to say what we believe would be meant by an inner London one-third New Commonwealth and Pakistan ethnic, or a Leicester, a Birmingham, a Wolverhampton and a West Riding of similar dimensions.
Broadly speaking there are three schools of thought on this subject. They vary in shades but they can be, perhaps, usefully classified into three. There are those who say—if I may use a jocular expression—that "it will be all right on the night", that it will evolve naturally and harmoniously—that I think is what the party to which the hon. Member for York belongs says—that we shall grow up with it and it will grow up with us; so we need not bother our heads about it, and least of all need we attempt to bring to bear irrelevancies of irritant detail such as those that are before the House this evening. That is one point of view.
There is a second point of view which, however much over the years I have sought to persuade myself that it could be ill-founded, I must nevertheless admit to holding. It is that such an England would be unlivable and ungovernable. It would not merely be inconceivable to us because of our past habits. It would be inconceivable in reality; and its inconceivability would be resolved in civil discord and violence. That is a second point of view, one which many hold.
The third view is in a sense akin to the second and that is the view—I use the word for convenience only—of the race relations industry. The race relations industry belongs to school 2, not to school 1. In fact it belongs to school 2b. It says that there is such a catastrophe ahead, but that it can be averted by race relations legislation, administration, persuasion and all the rest of it.
Now we do not know which of those views is right. The matter cannot be decided by any deduction, logic or analogy from elsewhere, because such an England would be unique and unprecedented in the relevant terms, which are the terms of England.

Mr. Wilkinson: rose—

Mr. Powell: No, I will not give way. I have given way to the hon. Member once and I want to complete my speech.
Nevertheless, we have the duty now, because we are responsible for the future as we have in the past been responsible for that same future, to decide, to declare and to persuade our fellow countrymen if we can that we are right in what we see.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I have been listening very carefully to the right hon. Gentleman. I must explain that I have black relatives and I do not take kindly to the sort of statements that he is making. Apart from that, what is the logic of his argument, where is he leading us? He has explained, quite rightly. that we are now a multiracial society and that we must have some control over immigration, whether it is white or black. That is accepted. I do not think anyone in the House would argue that there can be unlimited immigration into this country. Having accepted that, what is the logic of the right hon. Member's argument? What does he propose? Is he suggesting that we should send all these coloured people back? Where do we send them back to? [Interruption.]

Mr. Powell: Evidently the question is one that is worth debating. First, I am extremely sorry—indeed I am grieved—if anything that I have said could give any offence to the hon. Member or to any other person.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The right hon. Member gives offence every time he opens his mouth on this subject.

Mr. Powell: The hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) claims that I give offence whenever I open my mouth on this subject. To echo the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Helfer), one must ask where that takes us? It takes us to a point at which hon. Members, responsible to their constituents, responsible for the future, may offer one view, and


no other, as to what that future holds; otherwise they will be regarded as giving offence.
The importance of all this and where it is leading is this: that according to the view which is taken as between those broad alternative interpretations, according to the view which, on their responsibility, the Government take, so they must act. If it be the case that the prospective pattern of the population of this country is such that this country would not be a place worth living in, or London a city capable of being governed, for all who live in it, then it is the duty of those in authority to take measures accordingly. Those measures, since they are in the interests of all, are measures which should claim the support of all and for which the support of all should be sought. I believe it would be forthcoming.
What the Government are doing, what the Conservative Party has done by what it said in its election manifesto and by way it has acted in office, is to renege on that responsibility. The Conservatives have not been prepared to say to the public "This is the future of the population of England, and we believe it to be acceptable. We intend therefore to shut our eyes to it henceforward; for nothing that we will do, and nothing that we shall bring forward, can make any practical effect to it." By this kind of fiddling in these rules—it is not even legislation—as the Minister of State was careful to say—the Government are only finding an excuse to deny the British people the duty which, as the Government, they owe to them.

9 pm

Mr. K. Harvey Proctor: I am pleased to take up the remarks of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), who has spoken inside and outside the House on a number of occasions on this subject when politicians of both main parties have felt, like some hon. Members tonight, that he would do best to be silent about the issue on which he speaks so well and so succinctly.
The right hon. Gentleman began by saying that the House rarely debates this subject. He referred to the last full debate on immigration and emigration held on 24 May 1976. It is a pity that we do not discuss the subject at greater length. The fact that we do not debate it at further

length contributes to the fear that many whom we represent have come to associate with the issue. We are indebted to Her Majesty's Opposition for the fact that we have this debate, but we temper our indebtedness in the knowledge that they seek less rather than more control over immigration from the New Commonwealth.
I represent a constituency that has been little affected by immigration of large numbers of citizens from the New Commonwealth to our shores over the past three decades. However, many of the voters whom I have the honour to represent have experienced—many of their relatives are still experiencing—the problems in the inner cities that such migrations have exacerbated. We cannot turn a blind eye to present and future racial strife merely because we represent constituencies in the greener pastures of, for example, Mid-Essex.
Successive Governments have heard the fears of black and white alike. They have witnessed the strains and stresses on the surface in our inner city areas and in our urban conurbations. Both parties have responded by imposing successive controls on immigration, Alas, they may all be typified by the words "Too little and too late".
In the 1970 election manifesto of the Conservative Party, entitled "A Better Tomorrow"—[Interruption.] I am interested in the response of Labour Members because that was a manifesto on which the Conservative Party won a splendid victory. In that manifesto we pledged:
There will be no further large scale permanent immigration'
from the New Commonwealth into the United Kingdom."
But since then 457,873 New Commonwealth citizens have been accepted for settlement. The highest number was in 1972, when 68,519 came in for settlement. The lowest was in 1973, when 32,247 were settled here. The average over that period was 45,000. These figures take no account of illegal immigration.

Sir Ronald Bell: Those figures also take no account, in the years that my hon. Friend is referring to, of those who entered not for settlement but who were subsequently accepted for settlement. That category is now included in the statistics, and therefore we now know its magnitude.

Mr. Proctor: My hon. and learned Friend adds to the information on this subject. The figures that I have given are indeed under-estimates for that period, for the reason that he so clearly gave.
It is in the light of those figures that we must judge the rules. The changes in the rules are likely to have the effect of reducing immigration. The figure has not been mentioned by my own Front Bench, but I take it to be a few thousand each year.
Having considered the matter carefully, I do not think that that change will be sufficient in itself to allay the fears that gave rise to the assertion by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that people feared that this country was being swamped by New Commonwealth immigration. Nor do I believe that it will in any way meet the statement by my right hon. Friend the present Home Secretary in the debate in 1976, when he ended his speech by saying:
We must convince many people in this country that their genuine fears of future racial difficulties caused by too lax an immigration policy now are unfounded or, if there is a risk of such difficulties, that we will make sure that they are dealt with."—[Official Report, 24 May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 93]
Of course, Ministers will reply that no further controls can be exercised, because the bulk of immigration from the New Commonwealth is now made up largely of wives and dependants. It was with that in mind that a few days ago I tabled a motion making it clear that immigrant families could be reunited in their own country as well as in the United Kingdom. Must we wait a further 10 years and allow another⅓million or½million migrants to enter before we act?
Racial harmony and avoidance of strife will be achieved only when the indigenous population see a fall rather than a rise in the total New Commonwealth population resident in the United Kingdom. Simply stopping the immigrant flow will not now, regrettably, be sufficient to bring this about.

Mr. Stephen Dorrell: My hon. Friend is saying that he wants to see a reduction in the total immigrant or coloured population. How will he decide which British citizens will be expelled from the country whose citizenship they hold?

Mr. Proctor: My hon. Friend should not put words into my mouth. If he will bear with me for a little while, I may answer his question.
The fuel for the further increase in the immigrant population is natural increase and not further immigration. Therefore, I ask my right hon. Friend to reaffirm the view of successive Leaders of the Conservative and Unionist Party since the leadership of Sir Alec Douglas-Home that repatriation has a role to play for all those who wish to avail themselves of it. That role needs reviewing, clarifying, publicising and financing properly. The greater the take-up of a humane repatriation programme administered by the Home Office rather than by some international charitable institution in South London, the greater can be our tolerance and flexibility with regard to dependants.
This subject and the fears of our people about it will not go away with the passing of these rules. The House will be driven to return to it. I hope that it will return to it before long.

Mr. David Winnick: The first thing that we should recognise is that immigration controls on blacks and Asians—and we are dealing basically with blacks and Asians in this debate—are very tight and have existed under successive Governments for a number of years.
The speech to which we have just listened was one of which we should all be ashamed. Really, the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor) wants to set up camps—in practice this would be the position—to force people, many of whom are British citizens, out of the country.

Mr. Stokes: Withdraw.

Mr. Winnick: I do not believe that there could be anything more un-British than the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Basildon, and I have no intention of withdrawing my remarks about him.

Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: I disagree with most of what my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor) said. However, to talk in the sort of language just used by the hon.


Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and to put words into the mouth of my hon. Friend which he did not use simply serves to inflame the atmosphere of this debate.

Mr. Winnick: That is a matter of opinion, but I believe that the offence which that type of speech gives to people who do not have white skins should be recognised. Therefore, I do not believe that any apology from me is needed. The apology should come from the hon. Member for Basildon.
Britain has probably some of the tightest immigration controls in Western Europe. Whether we like it or not, most of us recognise that there have to be effective immigration controls. That has been my view for a number of years. I do not think that it is disputed. The important question is how those controls apply in practice.
On coming into office the Conservative Government found that the amount of immigration which could be reduced was very small. Prior to coming into office they had promised to reduce immigration and they gave the impression that there was a great deal of immigration which could be reduced. In practice, however, the majority of people who come from the New Commonwealth countries are women with their children who come here, rightly, to join husbands who are settled in the United Kingdom. The amount left for the Government to reduce has always been very small because primary immigration stopped some time ago.
Unless one said that wives and children should not be allowed to join husbands in the United Kingdom—it happens to be the Opposition's view that they should be allowed to continue to do so, and I am happy to say that that is also the Government's view—the scope for reducing immigration is limited. In effect, therefore, the Government have concentrated on two main groups—male fiances and aged parents.
I take the view that it is an accepted custom amongst the Asian community to arrange marriages for their children. In my view the greatest possible distinction should be made between marriages of convenience and marriages which are arranged in the Asian community. Un-

doubtedly, as time goes on, a number of Asian girls born in this country will find their own partners, but it is wrong to force the change, as the Government intend. The only reason why they are forcing through this change is to reduce the number of Asians coming in. That has been drawn so as to make it clear that it will not affect white women.
We must be honest about this. The whole point of the new rule is to reduce the numbers—not necessarily of black people, but of Asians, who are told in effect that they are not required and should not be allowed to come through the accepted Asian custom of arranged marriages.
It has been said that we could be in breach of articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Tomorrow our debate will arise from the fact that the Government broke a domestic law. We should be aware that we may be breaking an international convention to which we are a signatory.
The views expressed to the Select Committee by such distinguished people as Lord Scarman, Professor Jacobs and Mr. Anthony Lester should not be dismissed out of hand. They are based on a great deal of experience and should be heard with respect.
There is a misleading impression that before the new rules were introduced it was relatively easy for aged parents to join their adult children in this country. This is not so. I remind the House that under the old rules the parents had to show that one of them was 65 or over and had a sponsor here with adequate means to support or accommodate them. That was a preliminary, but it was not sufficient on its own, because one also had to show that the parents were wholly or mainly dependent on the adult child in this country. Thus, even under the old rules, it was difficult for aged parents to join their children here. Time and again parents could not satisfy the strict rules. They failed to get clearance to come here and they lost their appeals.
On a personal note, while I was out of the House I represented a number of people at immigration appeal hearings. It was very difficult to persuade an adjudicator or the immigration appeals


tribunal that the parents satisfied the relevant immigration rule. The reason was clear. It was that, some time ago, the tribunal had ruled, in the case of Zaman, that the sending of money by adult children to parents was not sufficient on its own. It was also necessary, according to the tribunal, for the parents to show that they were "necessarily so dependent". Thus, the number of aged parents who were allowed in from the Indian Sub-continent has been very small.
I am pleased that the Home Secretary has changed the Catch-22 rule. I was one of those who made representations to him. If the original proposal had gone through, no aged parents would have been allowed in. That was clear enough to lead to the change. However, under the new rule 48, in addition to the matters that I have mentioned, it is now also necessary for parents to show that they have no other close relatives in their own country to turn to. So, on top of the difficulties and obstacles under the old rules, aged parents have this extra condition to satisfy.
It should not be considered an offence for parents of 65 and over to wish to join their adult children here. In most cases there is no advantage to those children who take on the responsibility of aged parents. It is highly commendable that they are willing to do so. They have come to this country and settled down. It would have been relatively easy for them to have ignored their parents or simply to have sent them money, but they have an understandable wish to look after their aged parents.
Certainly the elderly parents do not come here for the fun of it. Flaying lived all their lives in India or Pakistan they do not particularly wish to come to a strange land. Why do they come here? It is not to join the labour market. In most cases the elderly mothers of children in this country have never worked in their own country and are not likely to do so here. Their husbands have no particular desire to start working either. Therefore, for various reasons—mainly because of pressure in their own country where they may need help—they come to this country to join their adult children. Is that a crime? Under the new rules

it will be even more difficult for those aged parents to satisfy the criteria for coming to join their children.
The children settled in this country cannot understand why their parents should not be allowed to come here. The children have the means and the accommodation to support their parents and have provided documentary evidence to that effect. They ask why their parents should not be allowed to join them.
I am worried that when this rule is interpreted by immigration and entry clearance officers it might be said that there is no need for the aged parents to come to the United Kingdom because perhaps, they have a married daughter in India or Pakistan, but the custom among these people is that it is the sons who look after the parents. It would be most unfortunate, where a married daughter in India or Pakistan is not in a position to look after her parents, if they were not allowed to come here. I hope that that aspect will be looked at carefully.
I may be wrong, but I understand that the Minister has said—according to reports in the press—that he has received too many letters of complaint from Members of Parliament about immigration. I do not know whether it is accurate, but he seems to be saying that there is too much representation on the issue. I must warn the hon. Gentleman that as the rules become tighter in relation to elderly parents he will receive more not fewer letters. Where adult children in the United Kingdom are not able to bring their parents here, they will understandably ask their Members of Parliament to make the appropriate representations.
We have made substantial progress in bringing race discrimination to an end in this country. I do not believe that all discrimination has ended, but when I hear sarcastic references by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen to the "race relations industry" I remember that race discrimination really did exist 10 years ago. It cannot be denied that discrimination existed in employment and housing in those days, and it was rare to see an Asian or a black face behind a counter. To a large extent that type of discrimination has disappeared, and that surely proves the point that we needed an effective Act in the first place. I go further and argue that we are a better and


healthier society as a result of that discrimination having been brought to an end.
However, I am worried that there will still be discrimination when it comes to the operation of the immigration laws. Along with the majority of my colleagues, I take the view that effective control of immigration is necessary. I do not want to give the impression that an open-door policy is desirable or that such a policy could be pursued by a Labour Government. There is a general wish for tight controls, but I am concerned about the manner in which those controls will be exercised. I believe that the new rules will give great and justified offence to those of our fellow citizens who do not have a white skin.
Up to now we have maintained effective immigration control, although some people argue that the controls have been too tight. There is no need to tighten them further. Therefore, I hope that even at this late hour the Government will recognise the offence that they have caused to the immigrant community. We are entitled to say that the rules are not necessary. We are also justified in voting against them.

Mr. George Gardiner: I intend to make a contribution based upon a visit to India in January, when I studied the operation of our immigration control procedures and sat in on a number of the interviews of applicants. However, the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) based a considerable part of his case on the Home Affairs Committee report on the proposed new immigration rules and their relation to the European Convention on Human Rights. I was a member of the Committee which prepared the report and interviewed witnesses.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that the report is strictly neutral. We set as our task the gathering of evidence and the presentation of it to the House. We heard all the witnesses with great respect. Among the witnesses was Professor Jacobs, professor of European law at London university. One significant point arose from his evidence—the distinction in the eyes of the European Commission between "differential treatment" applied by a

Government to their citizens and "discrimination". His evidence was that differential treament can constitute discrimination only if it has
no objective and reasonable justification".
The Government have ample evidence to sustain the proposition that they have "objective and reasonable justification" for amending the rules in the way that they propose. It is clear that in reaching its opinion the Commission would have regard to a wide range of attendant circumstances. The right hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel) was correct to say that evidence could be put to the Commission which would not normally be admissible in a British court of law. He cited a television interview of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when she was Leader of the Opposition. It is equally true that a party manifesto containing proposals on which a party is elected to Government, reports of party conferences and the treatment given to the issues in speeches and articles can be put before the Commission.
I am confident that if anyone were so misguided as to take the present Government to the European Court on this issue the Attorney-General and his Law Officers would be able to make a good case in defence of what we are voting upon this evening.
When I was in India I spent some time talking to our staff when undertaking their duties. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) in paying tribute to the work of our officers in India and in other parts of the Sub-continent. It is obvious that they have a keen awareness of the duty that we have placed upon them. They undertake it with humane understanding and they conduct the interviews of applicants in a most considerate manner.
In debates such as this I sometimes wonder whether Labour Members are inclined to forget that our real purpose is to control immigration. The most obvious lesson that struck me when I was in India was the way in which we are now paying the pr of previous laxity in these matters. Before I went I looked up a document which the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) placed in the Library for us some four years ago. That was the report by Mr.


D. F. Hawley when he was Assistant Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after a tour of inspection of our immigration posts on the Indian Sub-continent. He then reported to his superiors that the concession introduced in June 1974 over husbands and fiances was being abused, and he said:
The concession involves the 'multiplier' factor as it entitles parents, grandparents and allegedly distressed relatives of the fiancé to apply
—to apply, of course, for entry to this country as well.
When one sits in at these interviews today one can see that multiplier effect at work in a most significant way. Our ECOs are now interviewing the aged parents of former fiancés admitted under that relaxation. While I was there I witnessed an interview of the aged relatives of a gentleman who was admitted to this country as a fiancé to marry a particular lady who then rejected him on sight. Before the authorities could catch up with him he had quickly found another to marry in her place. This is an instance of the terrible legacy that has been bequeathed to us from that relaxation of the rules in 1974. We are tonight discussing a fairly modest step to tighten up there.
I referred to the famous Hawley report, and I think that it was significant in another respect which is still pertinent today. He remarked in paragraph 21:
The present position is unsatisfactory because current procedures and instructions are based on a Home Office assumption that the immigration problem in the Sub-continent is finite and that we are in the last stages of clearing up a backlog of 'entitled' dependants.
He went on to report that all the heads of mission and post then—that is, four years ago—were convinced that this assumption was wrong, and that he shared their view.
When I was there I put this point to our ECOs and they, too, were still of the opinion that the queue lining up for interview is constant, that as the top is scooped off so it is added to at the bottom. They were inclined to share the view put forward by Mr. Hawley four years ago that much more serious consideration should be given to the establishment of a register of those who still had an entitlement to enter this country.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: As to the finite nature of the queue, the suggestion that I made in 1974 that the queue of wives and children would ultimately end has been indicated quite clearly in India. It is now indicated quite clearly in Pakistan. Of the 27,000 who are now in the queue in the whole of the Sub-continent, the great majority are in Bangladesh, and that is all that is left of what I always said was the finite part of the queue.

Mr. Gardiner: The evidence which I quoted was from India, not from Bangladesh, and I put it forward with confidence in the source from which it came.
When I look back over all the argument about these proposed new immigration rules—which many of us regard as a fairly modest step towards fulfilment of the promises which we put to the electorate in our manifesto—I must ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister of State whether they are fully satisfied that these new rules will suffice to allay the anxieties which undoubtedly exist in this country.
In his opening speech, the right hon. Member for Leeds, South raised the question of the proposed register. I recall the words of my right hon. Friend the present Home Secretary in a speech at Leicester on 7 April 1978. After posing the question how many were left in the queue, my right hon. Friend made the basic point:
If certainty and finality are to be introduced into our future plans, and if anxiety is to be relieved, the answer to that question must be found.
He went on to make proposals for a register and for a system of annual quotas applied right across the board, and he concluded:
I believe this change to a predetermined rate of entry, coupled with a finite number to be received, will allay many—perhaps most—of the anxieties about immigration that cause such damage to good race relations today.
I believe that those words of the Home Secretary two years ago are as true today as they were then. We are being asked tonight to vote upon a small but helpful step in the right direction, but I hope that it will not be long before the Home Secretary or the Minister of State is able to reassure us that work will start in fulfilment of that manifesto commitment—or that, if the Government for some


reason come to the conclusion that that is not practicable, they will bring forward other proposals which will achieve the same end.

Mr. David Ennals: The speeches which we have heard from the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Gardiner) and some of his hon. Friends show how deeply divided are hon. Members on the Government Benches over this issue. Some of them are worried about the move which is being made and have made their position clear. Some want us to go very much further. There is no unity whatsoever. Perhaps they all fought on the same manifesto, but they do not know what to think today.
The only good thing to be said about the speech of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) is that he is at least against what the Government are putting forward tonight. But he has made his own contributions over the years to the fears and uncertainty of the minority community in this country, and I do not think that anything he said tonight, although he said it without some of the pictures of rivers of blood and the other emotive terms which he uses, will do anything to allay that uncertainty. I admit that he has been followed in that in the interview by the Prime Minister, which has been referred to on many occasions. I hope that he will not feel that he has a special and continuing role throughout his life to stir up uncertainty among the minority communities in Britain, who have a right to live in freedom and equality with all our citizens.
I spoke briefly in a debate on 4 December, when I concentrated mainly on the social and religious implications of the rules which were, in my view, discriminatory on grounds of sex, race and religion, and on their effects on community relations. It would be unfair not to recognise that some move has been made as a result of that debate.
I wish to be brief and to concentrate on one aspect only, namely, the legal for Reigate in doing so. I shall concentrate on paragraphs 50 and 52 of the rules. The Government, who have had so much to say about law and order, appear to be all too ready to breach the law themselves. It undermines the appeal which the Home Secretary and

the Prime Minister made to the public if they are prepared to take action which they know to be illegal, or which they fear and suspect is illegal.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) said, we shall be debating tomorrow a Bill to legalise retrospectively actions taken by the Secretary of State for Social Services, which were clearly illegal when he took such actions. Tonight we have, in my view, a worse position. We are being asked to vote into effect rules which, as the Government must know, in spite of the Minister's remarks, are contrary to the responsibilities which we have accepted in ratifying the European Convention on Human Rights. That is a serious matter.
I wish that the Minister, when introducing the debate, had concentrated on some of the arguments. He said that there were many strong arguments but he did not adduce any of them. I wish to remind the House of an exchange that took place in the debate on 4 December, when my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) asked the Home Secretary:
Will he now tell us what legal advice will be available about whether his proposals are in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights?
The Home Secretary replied:
That is a matter for the courts when the time comes for them to consider it. It is not a matter for me at this stage.
That reply was not good enough. It is not good enough for a Minister to say that he is not certain whether actions that are being taken are within the law, and that it is a matter for the courts to decide later. The court reached a conclusion, and that may be the position regarding the European Court.
I refer to an intervention in that debate by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Silkin), when he said:
Surely the House should be advised by a Law Officer of the Crown about whether these proposals are in conformity with, or in breach of, the European convention?
The Home Secretary replied:
I am coming to that."—[Official Report, 4 December 1979; Vol. 975, c. 256–57.]
But he did not come to that, and at no stage since then have the Government come to that issue.
Reference has been made to the first report of the Home Affairs Committee,


HC 434, published on 11 February. I refer the House to paragraph 6, which states:
In addition to the Home Office, the Sub-Committee had invited one of the Law Officers to appear before them. This invitation was not taken up. While we do not wish to press the matter in this instance, we feel that the refusal by Ministers to give evidence could raise an important issue which might need to be resolved early in the lifetime of the new Select Committee system.
The hon. Member for Reigate, who is at this moment leaving the Chamber, says that there was no agreement in Committee, but there was certainly agreement in that report that the Law Officers invited were not prepared to attend. Neither in the debate on 4 December, nor in the debate today, has there been a Law Officer present to say whether in his view the actions which are being taken under paragraphs 50 and 52 are considered or would be considered to be in conformity with the obligations which we have undertaken under the European convention.
Having read the report with some care, I have to say that those who gave evidence did so with great clarity. On page 30 of the report of the evidence Lord Scarman, talking about fiancés and husbands, said:
Now, undoubtedly, the effect of that policy carried out will be that some women settled in the United Kingdom will be less well placed in their family life than others. That is a discrimination, and it is a discrimination which can be said, prima facie, to offend Article 14, so that it is a combination, as you say, of Article 8 and 14 which gives rise to the possibility of a breach of the Convention.
Other evidence given before the Select Committee is to the effect that the Government are asking us to vote for something which would be against the views of the European convention, the terms of which we have accepted.
Before sitting down, I want to put some questions to the Home Secretary to which I hope he will reply. These questions also convey the views of the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service. That body, referring to the evidence given before the Immigration Sub-Committee of the Home Affairs Committee, stated:
The sections of the convention which would be breached would be the Articles on the protection of the family and on discrimination on grounds of race and sex.

It goes on to say that
it is inconceivable that a government which respects the rule of law should knowingly breach its international obligations on matters of such importance. To do so would bring discredit on the United Kingdom in Europe and internationally.
I ask the Home Secretary, first: what are the views of the Law Officers? Do they believe that the action that the Government are proposing to take will be in conformity with our obligations under the European convention?
Secondly, why did the Law Officers refuse to appear before the Sub-Committee when they were invited to do so? Was it that they feared that their evidence would enable the Select Committee to reach the conclusion that what we were doing would be against the terms of the European convention?
What is the Home Secretary's view? It is all very well to say, as the Minister of State said, that there are many arguments that we could bring forward if we were brought before the court. No doubt plenty of criminals have said "Do not worry. If we are brought before the court, we shall find all kinds of arguments that will get us out of difficulty." That is not good enough for Home Office Ministers who have responsibility for law and order in this country.
Does the Home Secretary still adhere to the argument that it is not a matter for him to determine whether his actions are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights? If not, whose responsibility is it? If it is not his responsibility to ensure that what he puts before the House is in line with the law, we are living in the law of the jungle.
Finally, is that just the first step, as so many of the Home Secretary's hon. Friends want? Is this the 1980 version of the application of the manifesto, or is there more to come in terms of legislation?
I hope that in winding-up the debate the Secretary of State will answer those questions.

Mr. Nick Budgen: I agree with the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals) in hoping that the Home Secretary will tell us whether this is the beginning or the


end of the programme. I also agree that the matter has been left very vague.
Indeed, I noted in the speech of my hon. Friend the Minister of State that apart from a few pretty vague paragraphs about the problem of illegal immigration he did not say anything at all about the general problems. Even in relation to illegal immigration, which was dealt with in the Home Secretary's speech on 4 December, nothing was said about the specific measures for dealing with that. Therefore, on any basis, not much has been said to the House about the future of immigration policy.
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) helped the House in the first part of his speech. He defined the problem that, as he put it, hangs like a cloud over these debates, which he tried to describe as the problem of identifying what we mean by immigrants, which he now describes as persons of New Commonwealth and Pakistani ethnic origin. While I was much helped by his description of the problem and his precise identification of a term by which it could be described, I did not find that I was able to agree with his sharp division of the two schools of thought, with a subdivision to the second school. The right hon. Gentleman said that there are those who, broadly speaking, believe that it will be all right on the night. Then there are those who fall into the school of thought, who say that England will become ungovernable. I fall nearer to the second category than to the first. But it seems to me that one does not have to go as far as the right hon. Gentleman goes. One does not have to say that England will ultimately become ungovernable.

Mr. Garel-Jones: Does not my hon. Friend agree that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) described two schools—the one that would be all right on the night and also the hecatomb that he prophesied? Surely it is not good enough to say that it will be all right on the night when the right hon. Gentleman admits that no one really knows who was right. Surely it would be much more constructive if we all worked to make it all right on the night.

Mr. Budgen: We want to try to make it all right on the night, but we must also recognise that there is a serious possibility that the right hon. Gentleman could be

right. I think that he goes too far, but none the less I believe that without action, even if England does not become ungovernable it will be an extremely unhappy place in which to live. There seems to me no doubt that the policy by which about 2 million people from other lands have been allowed to settle or to produce families in a few areas of England has created much unhappiness for them as well as for the people who have received them.
I wish to reduce the tension and the unhappiness. One of the most effective ways in which that can be done is to have a tight immigration policy. But before saying why I support what we the Tories said at the general election, I ought to deal with the point that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor). He plainly believes that a policy of repatriation is not only desirable but possible.
We have to define very carefully what we mean by repatriation. There will always be a number of persons from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan who will wish to go back to their country of origin. They will wish to go back voluntarily. I am in favour of making it possible for them to go back voluntarily. But out of 2 million people, of whom two-fifths have been born in this country, there will not be a very significant number who will wish to go back voluntarily. So unless anyone wishes to advocate compulsory repatriation, with all that that implies—and I say immediately that I am not in favour of it—it will not be possible to deal with the problem in a significant way by voluntary repatriation.
So we are left with other proposals that we shall advocate, in the hope that the prediction of the right hon. Gentleman that England will become ungovernable can be proved to be wrong, but at least in recognition of my proposition that there is a vast, terrible and often unrecognised problem that ought to be faced with courage and honesty by this House.
When we look at the revised rules we see that it is plain that absolutely all the concessions have been made to the Opposition. [Interruption.] Well, all right—to the opposition within the ranks of the Tory Party and to the Opposition. But not one concession has been made to those who wish to see tighter controls over immigration. As I said earlier, not one


word has been said about the future control of immigration. It is plain, is it not, that in his kindly way the Home Secretary is very sensitive to criticism in respect of this policy?
As a practical matter, I invite the whole House to look carefully at what was decided in the past when we became a party to the European Convention on Human Rights. There are many people who oppose the immigration rules. Members of Parliament are perfectly entitled to oppose them, and it is right that when matters of minority rights are debated, they should be fiercely debated. But the worst argument is the argument that we are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. I say to the Home Secretary that there is a need now to say immediately that we should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Let us have a look at the consequence of our being a party to that convention. I invite the House to look at the report of the Select Committee to which reference was made a short while ago, and more especially to page 36, because the Committee was very fortunate in that Mr. Anthony Lester, QC gave a very careful opinion to the Sub-Committee. On page 36, at paragraph 9, he most usefully set out the relevant principles from the convention to be applied to this problem.
My hon. Friend the Minister of State is being slightly less than frank with the House when he says that there is no racial discrimination in the proposals. I know that one can make an argument for almost anything. I am sure that if this matter is litigated an apparently respectable argument will be put forward for the proposition that there is no discrimination on either sex or race. I should have thought that that argument would be unlikely to succeed.
What is the next line of defence? It is the principle of proportionality. As Lord Scarman told the Sub-Committee, that means bringing into effect the argument whether the end justifies the means. What it comes to is that the broad issues that we have to debate—

It being Ten o'clock the debate stood adjourned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the consideration of Lords Amendments to the Protection of Trading Interests Bill and to the Bees Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Le Marchant.]

IMMIGRATION RULES

Question again proposed.

Mr. Budgen: What happens is that Continental judges or the Committee of Ministers will decide the broad issues that the House of Commons should decide. They will decide the issue of individual freedom as opposed to the authority of the State. They will decide the question of how large the racial minority group should be in England and what their rights should be as opposed to the rights of the indigenous population.
I raise this matter became it is not just relevant to these fairly unimportant rules and the simple issue before us, but because at least some of us on the Government Benches are determined that the spirit of the commitments made to the people of England at the last general election shall be adhered to. We believe that in large measure we were elected upon those promises and that we owe an obligation to those who elected us to see that those promises are carried out.
The three main promises that were made were, first, that we should have a new British Nationality Bill and Act, secondly, that there should be a register and, thirdly that there should be a quota. All those matters could give rise to an application, first to the Commission, then to the Court, and ultimately to the Committee.

Mr. Ennals: I recognise that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) is arguing that we should withdraw from commitments that we entered into but he is not saying that we have not entered into those obligations, any more than he is saying that he did not enter into obligations to his electorate in terms of the Conservative manifesto. But did he agree with the point that I made, that it is not good enough for the


Home Secretary to say, in terms of whether it is within the accepted law:
It is not a matter for me at this stage."—[Official Report, 4 December 1979; Vol. 975, c. 256].

Mr. Budgen: Of course the right hon. Gentleman made the point rhetorically. I accept that we have entered the Community and we are bound by the obligations, but if the House raises this issue and speaks of a clog upon the sovereignty of the House of Commons, as we necessarily do, the Government owe the House a view upon the effect of that convention in the same way that my obligation, when taking part in the debate, is to give a view on the points that are likely to be raised before the Committee of Ministers in the last resort.
The three additional promises to which I referred, and also to the promise to stamp out illegal immigration and illegal overstaying, go to the very heart of the sovereignty of the House of Commons. Every time we raise an issue that seeks to deal with these promises there will be siren voices from all parts of the House—from those who are strong Europeans, those who believe in world government and those who believe in all forms of supranational control over the sovereign House of Commons. Out of a mixture of kindliness and guilt they will be listened to far too attentively. Let us move to the logic of this, do away with this supranational control and withdraw from the convention.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I have always had a soft spot for the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen), who says the most racialist things with a good deal of charm and sensitivity. I wonder whether he recognises the impact of what he says on black people in his constituency.
We had an admirable example of this tonight, when the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) was actually hurt by the suggestion that he might have upset my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller) by suggesting that something that he had said would give offence to my hon. Friend's coloured relatives. Yet the right hon. Gentleman must know that every time he opens his mouth on race—this was the case again tonight—he deeply offends people who have settled in this country, who were born in this country and are citizens of it, and who expect to live the rest of their lives here. It is offensive to suggest that because they are black or brown they are a potential threat to the stability of this nation.
When the right hon. Gentleman talks about how the present birth rate in some of our inner cities will continue and establish for ever the same kind of proportion of black people in the population of those cities he must realise that that situation exists today. But whatever the difficulties, it cannot be suggested that this is a society that is totally unstable and in which even black people feel that they are subject to daily harassment and violence. That is not the case. I know that the right hon. Gentleman feels sincerely about this, but I ask him to consider all the evidence.
All the evidence of our past shows that this nation has been formed by successive waves of immigration from abroad and that ultimately those people who were migrants and who suffered in the same way as black migrants are suffering today have integrated into the community and the culture of the community has widened because of their presence. We have all benefited immeasurably from the fact that that is the nature of our society. We are benefiting immeasurably from the presence of black people in our community at present and we shall continue to bene-

fit. It is unfortunate that this essential message, which is now coming across increasingly to most people, has not yet got through to the Government Front Bench. Had it done so, they would never have brought forward the nonsense that is in these rules.

Mr. Stokes: I am interested in the hon. Member's argument. However, I do not think that he is being fair in saying that in the past England has received immigrants from many countries and has absorbed them all. Of course we have, but in tiny numbers. It is the sheer vastness of the present immigration that makes it so different from previous immigration.

Mr. Lyon: I always learnt from my history that the Normans actually swamped the Anglo-Saxons, especially in our inner cities. On the whole I think that we benefited from that.
I should like to turn to the report of the Select Committee of which I was Chairman. I do not think that the Minister did justice to the efforts of the Committee in taking evidence on this matter. In normal circumstances one would expect that there would be a proper debate on the reports of the new Select Committees, otherwise they would not have the impact that they could have. That debate would normally be opened by the Chairman. I accept that in this debate that could not happen, but our report was brought out in order to assist the House in coming to a conclusion about these rules. When we took evidence we discussed who should give evidence before us and we took the advice of others. We came to the conclusion that the people whom we asked for evidence were the best experts on the matters that we had to consider.
We asked the Home Office to give evidence. We asked the Attorney-General to give evidence. The right hon. and learned Gentleman refused, for reasons that are indicated in the report. We also asked Professor Jacobs, who was employed as an official of the European Commission of Human Rights, before he became an academic. We asked Lord Scarman, who has an international reputation for the defence of human rights and knows the convention and the institution well. We asked Mr. Anthony Lester, QC, not because he had once been in


the Home Office but because he has more experience of appearing before the commission than any other member of the English Bar.
We discussed the issue in a Committee in which there was a Conservative majority. When we had heard all the evidence we asked whether there was anyone else whom we should call. No one suggested anyone else. The Minister now suggests that we should have called Lord Rawlinson. I know that Lord Rawlinson has a high reputation on the Government Benches. However, I do not think that any Conservative Member would begin to put him in the same class as Lord Scarman, although the Minister appeared to do so. Before the suggestion was made I had not understood that Lord Rawlinson had any expertise relevant to the European Convention on Human Rights, or much experience of it.
The Committee deliberately did not come to a decision on whether the United Kingdom was or would be in breach. The Committee did not regard itself as the Court. What it said it would do at the beginning, and what it did, was to reflect on the evidence. The overwhelming evidence, apart from the Home Office evidence, was that the United Kingdom would be in breach of the rules relating to parents and fiancés. It was clear that we would be in breach of articles 8 and 14 taken together.
Article 8 refers to the defence of family life and article 14 to discrimination in the application of the rules to people who live within the convention area. It is significant that the Home Office could not advance any of the weighty argument to which the Minister referred to deal with the allegation. The Home Office contended that there was a difference between differential treatment and discrimination. Lord Scarman agreed, but he could find no way in which the evidence that had been put before the House by the Government in the previous debate in any way suggested that differential treatment was not discrimination within the meaning of the convention.
If a difference is made between one person and another on the ground of sex or race, and there is no justifiable reason for so doing within the policy that is being pursued, that is discrimination. It is undeniable that there is a difference be-

tween one person and another if they are of different sexes. Even the Home Office accepted that in its evidence. It is now undeniable, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West agreed, that there is a difference in relation to race, and certainly in relation to fiancés. I should have thought that that applied in relation to parents. If that is so, it is impossible to conceive a situation in which the European Commission of Human Rights or the Court will acquit the Government of a breach of the convention.
There are two choices. The Government can do as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West suggested and retire from the convention altogether. I think that the hon. Gentleman's advice to burglars was that the law is wrong, so we should withdraw from it. I cannot believe that the Government, with their pretended record on law and order, will say that because we are in breach of the law we should abandon our adherence to the European convention.

Mr. Budgen: That is not right.

Mr. Lyon: That is exactly the argument advanced by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Budgen: No.

Mr. Lyon: I think that the Government might try to shrug it off. However, it is impossible to shrug off a breach of the convention when we are a signatory member of the convention and have said that we shall faithfully honour its observations. We have always adhered to its decision, whatever it was, and tried to implement it.

Mr. Peter Archer: So that he shall not be misunderstood, will my hon. Friend confirm that he would not suggest that we could lawfully withdraw from our obligations under the convention?

Mr. Lyon: I do not suggest that we could do so, any more than the burglar could lawfully withdraw from the provisions of the Theft Act, but the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West seemed to be getting near to suggesting that.

Mr. Budgen: I was advocating that we should withdraw from the convention. That is lawful.

Mr. Lyon: That would not save the Government from the embarrassment that would come about when they are found to be in breach of the convention because of the passage of this rule when they are adhering to the convention. The Minister of State shakes his head, but the overwhelming weight of the evidence is in the document. There is no way in which one can argue that there was not discrimination. It is true that the Committee did not in the end say so, because even where there were some pointed remarks in the report they were taken out by the Conservative majority.
But the Committee said clearly that in assessing whether the differential treatment was discrimination the Commission was entitled to look at all the circumstances of the case, including party manifestos, party speeches, such as that of the new Secretary of State before the last election, which propounded this doctrine, the television interview of the Leader of the Opposition, as she then was, which contained the famous word "swamping" and speeches by supporters of the Government in the House.
Anyone who looks through the speeches in this debate as well as the last debate will find plenty of evidence of the intention of the rules, but the most significant information is the evidence put forward by the Government in support of the rules. When they referred to figures before the report came out they always referred to the New Commonwealth and never to the immigrants from elsewhere in the world. Yet one-third of those coming in for settlement at any given time in the past five or 10 years have been white people from the Old Commonwealth or foreign countries.
What is most significant of all is that when the Government talk about the problems of primary immigration set by fiancés they totally neglect the figures from the white Commonwealth or from the white foreign countries of the world. In 1978 10,000 came into this country for marriage, 5,500 of them coming from the white areas of the world. Practically none of them will be affected by this change of rule, because of the concessions that have been made progressively by the Home Secretary.
The latest concession—the one that now allows a woman to bring in a husband if she was the daughter of a person

born here—is more racialist than any of the other concessions. It aggravates the racialist implications of the rules. Far from saving the Government before the Commission, it will make the case much worse.
In addition, the Government go on talking about their difficulties in applying a similar critical exemption for women coming into the country, because they say that there is a statutory provision in the 1971 Act that would have to be repealed.

Mr. Wilkinson: rose—

Mr. Lyon: I shall not give way, because I must get on. If it were really argued that the presence of people coming for work, which is what primary immigration means, was the real threat to our economy, it should be remembered that 40 per cent. of the migrant women who enter this country, just like 40 per cent. of women already here, go out to work. Therefore, 40 per cent. of the 15,000 women who came in 1978 for marriage are likely to go out to work. If that were the real reason, the same provision would be applied to women as is applied to men. It is not. Clearly, that will be used against the Government.
The leader of the Liberal Party pointed to working holidaymakers, thousands of them coming in from the white areas of the Commonwealth each year to work. They are not to be excluded. The exclusion is only in relation to those coming from the black areas of the Commonwealth.
There is an even worse case that will have to be taken into consideration by the Commission. Under the 1973 rules, as a result of a revolt among Conservative Back Benchers, a provision was introduced that was not contained in the previous rules, namely, that anyone who had a grandparent born in this country has a free right of entry. By definition, that applies only to white, and 3,357 such people came here in 1978. That is more than the total saving that the Minister has estimated for these changes in the rules. He is keeping out fewer than 3,000 black people and still allowing in 3,500 white people, almost all of whom are coming for work.
If the right hon. Gentleman is really concerned about primary immigration and


about the threat to jobs he will therefore want to change the rule applying to the grand-patrial clause. But he does not. It is obvious, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West admitted, somewhat to the embarrassment of his Front Bench, that the real reason for these changes in the rules is a racialist one.
The changes have a racialist implication, they have a racialist intention, and those Government supporters who abstained on the last occasion because they felt in all conscience that they could not go into the Division Lobby with their Government on this issue now have the evidence not of me—the hon. Member for Surbiton (Sir N. Fisher) asked me on the last occasion how I could be sure that we were in breach of the European Convention—but of Lord Scarman, Mr. Lester and Professor Jacobs, three people who are concerned intimately with the operation of the convention, that we are in breach. If Government supporters really want to save their Government from embarrassment their proper course of action tonight is to vote against these rules and stop them.

Mr. John Carlisle: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor), I must congratulate the Opposition on taking valuable parliamentary time to debate a subject that is of such great relevance, that is such a great national issue, and is one of the difficulties facing us today, especially in the light of what the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) said about the numbers being so small that one might almost say that it was not worth debating them. We are debating a very minor alteration to a legacy bequeathed to the nation by hon. Members of both parties.
Immigration and its control have commanded and will command many hours of debate and discussion, but I suggest that much of the argument engendered by Opposition Members is pure political hypocrisy aimed at pandering to a minority already over-protected by a wealth of legislation, biased rules and numerous statutory boards and bodies. That about 3 per cent. of our population command such important attention immediately gives them a special place in society and one that has brought its own recrimination from those who, despite

their indigenous claim, do not enjoy this special immunity.
Much of the humbug practised by right hon. and hon. Members opposite, including the Liberals, is apparent in their constant accusation of discrimination and racialism levelled at those who recognise that backgrounds are different, that cultures do not necessarily mix and that even the distinction of the colour of skin is difficult for some people to accept.
To assume immediately that intending inhabitants from countries many thousands of miles from their new home will be given an enthusiastic welcome is to ignore some basic nationalistic feelings that are natural and inherent. The majority of English, Scots, Welsh and Irish have known no other home than these isles, and they do not intend otherwise. They are proud of their identity and patriotism. We cannot assume that they will readily accept any jet-age migrant who happens to choose these islands as his home. They are bound to feel some antagonism towards those who bring new customs, new habits, new standards that they themselves will not accept, new social behaviour and, regrettably, a certain arrogance that at times is almost anti-British.
It must be against this background and in full recognition of the wishes and feelings of the indigenous people that we consider a further tightening of the rules and prevent our country being further overrun by immigrants. The annual figure of about 50,000, boosted by at least that many again by illegals and overstayers, is still far too high, and the Government should reduce it drastically.
In the debate in December I expressed the wish that the original alterations, including the change in the much-abused fiancé rule, were only the hors d'oeuvres. If this is the first course, many hon. Members and many more people outside are still waiting for the main course.
A view is readily canvassed that immigration should cease immediately and only genuine cases of hardship and family misery should qualify. I would not support that view if I felt that we were going back on promises by previous Administrations, but if there is no other way to reduce the numbers substantially a rearrangement of old commitments may be necessary.

Mr. Cyril Smith: There is always the gas chamber.

Mr. Carlisle: The British passport has long been abused as an abject excuse to gain access to this promised land of employment, social benefits and opportunity. Our somewhat tarnished image abroad still, seemingly, has little effect on those clamouring to come here. It is unbelievable that at a time of great national difficulty, when five years of Socialist profligate spending has pushed inflation to an intolerable level and unemployment is rising, hon. Members on the Opposition Benches, particularly those in the Liberal Party, call for a relaxation of controls. The Labour Party granted amnesties to illegal entrants and now chastises the Government for attempting to protect their people against an even larger burden on their already overstretched services.
Do not the Opposition realise that further immigration will do more damage to those already here than to any other sector of society? Do they not appreciate that their call for increased public expenditure must be financed by those who are already struggling to settle into life in circumstances entirely different from those to which they are used? Do they not realise that many of these intending settlers will not be able to speak English, let alone wish to accept new customs that are themselves alien to their religious upbringing?
The burden upon some of our education services is already intolerable. At a school in my constituency an estimated 89 per cent. of pupils are of ethnic orgin and at times the yearly intake contains a 50 per cent. entry of those totally unable to speak English. Do these figures not put a special difficulty on those who are expected to provide every educational facility against a background of falling financial resources? Can we reasonably expect the taxpayer to finance the teaching of English in our schools to a continuing stream of migrants and their children?
If Opposition Members are so anxious to relax all the rules that we have and to prompt a further large influx of migrants, will they explain to their constituents that this could bring further special difficulties, which could be burdensome to our inhabitants, including of

course, those recently settled here? As my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office—the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison)—said, this extra burden on our social services can no longer be tolerated.
These intended changes are minor indeed. The fiancé rule has been much abused, as Labour Members have successively admitted. Parents of any age cannot expect automatic entry without some visible means of support, as they cannot expect that even their dependants are certain to welcome a further burden on their family budget.

Mr. Robert Rhodes James: Does my hon. Friend realise that if the rules about foreign fiancés, as originally drafted, had applied in full, Prince Albert would never have been allowed to marry Queen Victoria?

Mr. Carlisle: My hon. Friend should perhaps have seen that and spoken to the Home Secretary at that time.
The au pair has become an easy excuse for another form of entry. The description "student" can cover a multitude of activities, and access can be readily gained for attendance at some pseudo-educational establishment, many of which are completely unregistered. Admission for temporary stayers has led to an abuse that even the Home Office admits is largely undetected. Indeed, the phrase "passengers coming for temporary purposes" can also include a wedding guest who fails to return home after the ceremony.
Although these rules are designed further to restrict primary immigration, there must be an increasing worry that ethnic families tend to be large and almost unlimited in the number of their dependants.
My hon. Friend should be concerned that these measures may still prove inadequate to the primary task of reducing numbers to a trickle and without doubt further restrictions will be necessary. Let not this Government flinch from taking such measures. There is a real concern among the people that too many are taking advantage of our misplaced hospitality; that too many immigrants are overstaying; that too many are abusing the rules; and that too many are living in the belief


that Britain is a paradise for any who choose to come here.
These rules will go some way to correcting the situation, but let them be the forerunner of more to come.

Mr. Peter Archer: If I do not reply to the arguments of the hon. Member for Luton, West (Mr. Carlisle), I hope that he will not assume that silence implies assent. The House has listened to his views, and in the interests of the good name of this House I hope that it will never have to listen to a repetition of them.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) indicated at the outset of the debate that I might seek to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wish to be brief and confine myself to the issue of the incompatibility of the Government's proposals with the obligations of this country under the European Convention on Human Rights. If I abstain from comment on any other aspects of this debate it is not because I have no views on them and it certainly is not because I have no constituency interest in them. I have large numbers of constituents who have reason for real anxieties on these matters. But many hon. Members on both sides of the House are anxious to take part and it would be unfortunate if it appeared that this debate were monopolised by the Front Benches.
The Opposition are troubled by the cavalier attitude of the Government to their obligations under international law. We should be grateful to the Select Committee for the care that it devoted to this matter. We should also be grateful to those who gave evidence to the Select Committee. It might have been courteous to the Select Committee and to its witnesses if the Government had given the House the benefit of the views of a Law Officer, or at least given the House the benefit of their reactions to the evidence submitted by those witnesses. I say nothing of the provisions relating to parents and grandparents, though I am not by any means saying that even with the proposed further amendments there is no further reason for anxiety.
I say nothing of article 3 of the convention, although it seems to me that

there might be an argument that the Government's proposals amount to degrading treatment, as was suggested by certain of the witnesses before the Select Committee. I say nothing of what Lord Scarman referred to as the "nasty little provisions" relating to au pair girls.
I invite the attention of the House to the fiancé provisions, where it seems to me that there is clear reason for anxiety The proposed rules 50 and 52 as my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) indicated, seem to make a distinction between men and women, between British born and foreign-born women, and between women coming from different religious and cultural backgrounds. I have heard no suggestion that those distinctions are not made.
Article 8 of the convention provides that
Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life.
Whether the Commission would find an infringement of that article taken alone would depend upon the facts. However, I do not seek to take the matter any further than it was taken by the Minister of State. But, of course, the Commission is entitled to consider it in conjunction with article 14. That article reads:
The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any grounds such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.
It has emerged from the jurisprudence of the Commission that article 14 is applicable only to the rights set out in the other articles in the convention. But there is a strong body of opinion that the Commission may find an infringement of article 14 in relation to a right arising under another article even if there is not an infringement of that other article taken alone. Clearly, if article 14 operated only where there was an independent infringement of the convention, it would be superfluous. And that view is expressed by the Commission in the Belgian linguistic case.
So the Commission is entitled to consider whether article 8 imposes distinctions based on race, sex, religion or any of the other factors in article 14. There was little doubt by any of the Select Committee witnesses that it would not be


arguable that there are not such distinctions in rules 50 and 52.
But a further matter must be considered. Differences of treatment are not necessarily discrimination within article 14. It depends upon whether the difference in treatment has an objective and reasonable justification. Professor Jacobs, in evidence to the Committee, expressed the view that in deciding that question the only factors which could properly be taken into account are those which are either inherent in the nature of the right—that is, inherent in article 8—or those designed to remedy existing inequalities.
For the sake of argument, let us assume that Professor Jacobs is wrong. Let us direct our minds to the wider range of factors, as Lord Scarman and Mr. Lester did. Their clear view is that the reasons set out by the Government do not justify the discriminations. Clearly the magnitude of the problem which the measures are designed to resolve must be considered with the relevance of the difference in the treatment of the problem. I shall not trouble the House by repeating the evidence of Mr. Lester.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence: Why not?

Mr. Archer: I am not sure what the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) is suggesting from a sedentary position. If he finds Mr. Lester's evidence amusing, the humour has escaped those who have taken the trouble to sit through the debate.

Mr. Lawrence: The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) invites me to get to my feet. I suggest that the evidence of Mr. Lester, although he is a most eminent QC, can hardly be said to be unbiased.

Mr. Archer: Then we may ask whether the evidence of Lord Scarman is unbiased. I invite the House to consider what Lord Scarman said. He was examining the paragraph which states that
the parties to the marriage have not met.
He said:
Why it should be thought that (c) adds anything to the control of primary immigration I do not know. It just seems to me to be an attack on the social habits and customs of people who have come to this country and who are living according to the customs in which they were brought up.

That is the view not of a Socialist politician but of Lord Scarman.
The Government have two possibilities. They may say, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) said "Let us acknowledge that this would be an infringement of the convention. Let us ignore our legal obligations and say that we propose to ignore them". When my hon. Friend for York was speaking, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West suggested that that might be done lawfully.

Mr. Budgen: I still say that.

Mr. Archer: It is clear that it cannot be done lawfully. Article 65 of the convention provides for the denunciation by a high contracting party after six months' notice, but it makes clear that such a denunciation:
shall not have the effect of releasing the High Contracting Party concerned from its obligations under the Convention in respect of any act which,…may have been performed by it before the date at which the denunciation became effective.
So it is perfectly clear that the Government cannot escape by doing that. But then they might say simply that they just do not mind whether they are infringing their international obligations. That is a possible attitude, and, I should have thought, less hypocritical than the attitude which they are maintaining. But let it not be said after that that the Conservative Party is the one which believes in observing legal obligations. Let it not be suggested, either, that this is anything to do with the EEC. The European Convention on Human Rights is not an instrument of the EEC. The parties to it are not members of the EEC, and it has nothing to do with the EEC.
All that we have heard at the moment from the Government is an invitation to the House to proceed with these amendments and to argue the case if and when it arises.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: In considering the alternatives under the convention, has my right hon. and learned Friend forgotten that there is another possibility, and that is that the Government might not renew the right of individual petition? Does he agree that that would be the most shameful of all possible courses?

Mr. Archer: I certainly had in mind the point that my right hon. and learned


Friend mentioned. But I was a little reluctant to put ideas into the Government's head. The fact is that that option will not arise in any event until 1981, because our present ratification extends until that year. So that would not avail the Government either.
All that we have heard from the Government at the moment is that they are not prepared to ensure that they are in conformity with their international obligations before they invite the House to ratify these proposals. I should not have thought, in those circumstances, that it was unreasonable for hon. Members to suggest that we might have had the views of a Law Officer. Where the blame lies I would not know, and perhaps we are not entitled to ask. the Government where lies responsibility for decisions taken within the Government. But whether the blame rests with Home Office Ministers or someone else, I echo the views expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Enna1s), and I hope that in the winding up the debate the Home Secretary will answer some of these questions.
Parliament is being asked to approve amendments to the rules, the legality of which in international law is, at the very lowest, open to grave doubts. There has been a debate over the last few years on whether we ought to have a Bill of Rights. Some have argued for such a Bill with entrenched provisions which would limit the power of Parliament to approve legislation in conflict with it. I do not share that view. Some, like Lord Scarman in his original Hamlyn lecture, express the view that we might have a Bill of Rights which would require a special built-in parliamentary majority in order to pass legislation in conflict with it. Some have thought that it might be introduced simply as part of our general legislation, but subject to being overridden by Parliament. But at each stage there have been those who have said "Why do we need it? The citizens of this country already have these rights. They are enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights". They have gone on to say "We can accept without question that Parliament would not behave so irresponsibly as to pass legislation which is in conflict with our obligations under the convention". So they have said "Why do we need a Bill of

Rights in this country? Parliament may be relied upon to avoid the necessity for a Bill of Rights".
I promised to be brief. I rose only to say that that argument will be put to the test in the Lobbies tonight.

Mr. Tony Marlow: I do not anticipate that many Members on the Opposition Benches will agree with what I have to say. I do not anticipate that some of my hon. Friends will agree with what I have to say. But I do anticipate that the great majority of people in this country will agree with what I have to say and will wish that it was said loud and clear in the House.
Today is a sad day. It is not a sad day because this is a sexist and racist measure, as it has been described, and as it has been put before the House, but it is a sad day because it brings into focus once again how completely out of touch Governments in this country and some hon. Members in this debate have been with the people of the country that they purport to represent.
We know what the people want. We are their elected representatives. We alone can introduce the measures that they require. We have failed. Although I hope that the measures that we are introducing today will help, we still have a long way to go.
Britain is a crowded island. It is a British island, and the repository of British culture and the British way of life. Through negligence and timidity we have imported 2 million people of a different culture. If, at any stage, we had put to the British people the question "Do you wish to bring into this country 1 million, 2 million or 3 million people of a different culture?", do we really believe for one moment that they would have answered "Yes"? If we assume that the answer would have been "No", we must all agree that so far we have failed.
I speak of a different culture. I do not say that it is a better culture or a worse culture, that it is an inferior culture or a superior culture; I say simply that it is a different culture. There is nothing better or worse about the smell of curry or the smell of tripe and onions. There is nothing inherently better or worse


about the European system of marriage or the arranged marriage. But, as we all know, the expression says
When at Rome do as the Romans do.
I suggest to those new Britons that when in Britain they should do as the Britons do. Otherwise, they will build up a store of antagonism that, one day, may well erupt into a bloody and civil strife.
People have criticised these measures because they say that they are racialist, as if racialist is a word of abuse. What does racialist mean? It means tribal. After all, man is a tribal animal. We have a feeling of kith and kin for people like ourselves, with our own background and culture. If we wish to look at man being a tribal animal we do not have to look any further than our own country to see how true that is.
Consider Northern Ireland, where people of basically similar race and culture, with a little bit of difference in their religion—it is the same Christian religion but with different aspects—spend their leisure hours bombing and maiming each other simply because of the marginal difference between them.
Consider Wales, where the extreme followers of the culture of the Welsh tribe have developed a new hobby—arson. Consider Scotland, where recently there was the fiasco of devolution—people hankering for an identity. That was one of the motivating forces behind it.
If these problems and pressures exist in islands where we have been living together for thousands of years, surely it has been a mad, mad lack of decision to allow the introduction of a massive population of people of Asian cultures. It is surely lunatic to allow the assembly in these islands of 2 million people of different culture, different custom, different religion and different expectation. One aspect that I have missed out is difference in colour. Colour does not make any difference at all. What makes a difference is the different loyalty that often goes with colour.

Mr. Dorrell: rose—

Mr. Marlow: I hesitate to give way. There is no time, and many other hon. Members wish to speak.

Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend made it clear that he was not talking about race.

He said that he was concerned about those who come to this country, and he spoke of 3 million having arrived in the past 20 years. Will he accept that this country has accepted people coming to these islands for settlement for the 2,000-year period that he mentioned? The Angles, the Saxons, the Vikings, and the French refugees in the 16th century, came to Britain. It was part of our tradition to accept them for settlement and to give them equal rights with our citizens.

Sir Ronald Bell: Does my hon. Friend agree that it might be difficult to tell an Angle from a Saxon?

Mr. Marlow: I agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Sir R. Bell).
As regards my other hon. Friend, it is true that we have had other people come to these islands, but in nothing like the same quantity and in nothing like the same degree of cultural diversity from the people who were already living here. I would also hazard a guess, knowing the feeling amongst the indigenous population, that this is something that they did not want to arise.
Earlier, in the saga of immigration—[Interruption.] Would my hon. Friend suggest that we took up arms against them?
Earlier, in the saga of immigration, we have spoken of integration. Now the same people are talking not about integration but about a multi-cultural society. I take exception to preaching by theoreticians on the periphery who said, first, that immigration would not be a problem, secondly, that if it was a problem we could integrate it, and now who say "You cannot integrate it, but we are going to have a multi-cultural society." We have have a multi-cultural society. In fact we cities within our cities; states within our State; a land of divided ethnic loyalties.
Soon, like America—look at the fiasco of the vote in the United Nations the other day on Palestine—we will not be ruling the country in the interests of the country; we will be looking from side to side to see what each particular ethnic voter has got to say about anything that we want to bring in as legislation. Is it acceptable that anyone should be granted the privilege, the rights, of British nationality and should choose at the same time to


owe loyalty to another and an alien regime?
With few honourable exceptions—the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—politicians have found it difficult to avoid getting bogged down in a world of humbug on this subject. We have inverted the truth. We have rewritten the English language. Cowardice has been referred to as courage; courage has been referred to, as by an hon. Gentleman opposite, as Fascism and as racialism because he does not understand the meaning of the English language and because he inverts it all the time.
We now know that in many of our constituencies the immigrant community is larger than the majority of the party in power. Therefore, we have shrunk from introducing the measures that we know the people of this country would wish, because it would have infringed the expectations of those communities. Is that courage or is that cowardice?
Despite the denial of human rights in many countries round the world—I am very concerned about the denial of rights to people in this country, the electorate in this country—we know that if we grasped the nettle of immigration and based our immigraton policy on people with our own cultural identity we would be faced with the universal approbation of the world community So we have failed to enact measures that we know the bulk of the people of this country would wish. Is that courage or is that cowardice?
We like to be liked. We like the good feelings of our colleagues. We like the plaudits of the liberal press. We have joined together in a conspiracy—

Mr. John Watson: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Marlow: Really, I would love to give way, but I—

Hon. Members: Give way.

Mr. Watson: On the question of courage, I am curious to know whether my hon. Friend regards himself as having been elected to lead public opinion so slavishly to follow it.

Mr. Marlow: I think that on this issue, over which our people have been misrepresented for such a long period and

over which, if anybody stands up and represents their wishes, they believe that they are speaking out of turn and that they will not get anywhere and that to a certain extent they are mad, out of date and are doing something that is not going to succeed. It requires a certain amount of courage, and I think that the right hon. Member for Down, South has shown more courage on this issue than everybody else in the House put together. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Absolute rubbish."]
We like to be liked. We like the plaudits—I am not trying to be liked—of the liberal press. We like to join the cosy conspiracy, where the convention is to stand the world on its head. We know what the people want, but we are frightened of the implications if we try to achieve that which they wish. It is a gradual problem. There is no particular day on which we say the problem is too much and we have to do something about it. We hope that it will go away.
Instead of standing up and demanding action, we have been congratulating each other on the avoidance of mutual embarrassment. We have been subjected to the greatest invasion in the history of this country. There were 2 million immigrants in 1970 and 3 million by 1980 and there will be 4 million by 1990. If the predictions of the OPCS are accurate there will be 5 million by the end of this century. They are people of different cultural backgrounds. In some of our cities our own people will be in the minority.
Even after these rules have been introduced, a new town the size of Northampton will have to be built every five years just to take care of legal immigrants who come into the country. Is that what Labour Members believe the people of this country want? Is that what they believe they have been sent here to achieve? I do not.
What about illegal immigration? Heaven knows how many illegal immigrants have come in, because by its nature no proper estimate can be made. However, no one in authority to whom I have spoken has been in a position to deny that illegal immigration may well be greater than legal immigration. What we do know is that during a period of 20 months one-third of a million Iranians


entered this country—some possibly fleeing from the manic ayatollah—whose return would have been unwelcome.
There is no doubt that very few came on shopping trips. How many stayed? We do not know, and we do not begin to know. What we do know is that during a nine-month period, when 18,000 inquiries were sent out by the special overstayers' tracing unit, only 1,300 of those people were found. What has happened to the rest?
Each year, as air travel becomes relatively cheaper, more people flood into the lush pastures of Western Europe. Turks and Yugoslavs go to Germany; Algerians and Moroccans go to France; Nigerians, Iranians and Cypriots come to the United Kingdom. There are great pressures to come. There are great opportunities that lure such people to the lush pastures of the Western European countries. The more who come, the more there are to tell the people back home that it is worth trying to come. How easy it is for people to come as visitors or students and to spend one minute with an immigration officer—such people can show him a document, perhaps a hotel booking and a bit of cash to show that they have a legitimate purpose for their visit—and then to disappear!
Is it difficult to get hold of a national insurance card? Is it difficult to set up a new life or identity? The worst that can happen is that one will be liable to deportation. Is not it worth taking a chance, especially when the resources to do anything about it are at present so woefully inadequate? These rules go nothing like far enough, but I am glad that we have a clear, unambiguous and irrevocable commitment to introduce a register and a quota. I hope that those come soon, and I look forward to hearing from my right hon. Friend that that will be the case.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend would not wish to deny that the people of this country would like to know how many people their Government will invite to share their homeland with them. But even these rules will be nothing like enough.
We should perhaps ask what it is that legal immigrants say to themselves as they prepare to come. Do they want to

come here to contribute to the British way of life, or to the glory of the British people, or do they come for their own material, selfish benefit? There is nothing wrong with that. We would do the same if we were in their position. However, if they come here for their own selfish benefit, why do we extend those privileges to their relatives?
I know that we have not said that we shall withdraw the ability of relatives to come here. We talk about the tragedy of divided families. But families can reunite in both directions. I look forward to hearing what my right hon. Friend has to say, and I look forward to some encouragement on these issues.

11 pm

Mr. John Sever: I, too, shall be interested to hear what the Home Secretary has to say in reply to a remark made a few moments ago by his hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), because it was my clear understanding, from the Government's position thus far, that there was no commitment to the register and the quota. The House and the country will want to know whether the right hon. Gentleman has changed his ground in the last few days, because these are essential matters of fundamental importance to all the ethnic minority communities in Britain. I am sure that they will not want the right hon. Gentleman to echo the words of his hon. Friend.
A few moments ago my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) outlined very efficiently the deep-seated worries that Labour Members have about the Government's stance on the European Convention on Human Rights. If the Government, with their eyes wide open, are taking us into what seem to be endless difficulties in Europe over the convention, we shall want the Home Secretary this evening to tell us why he did not find it necessary to take the advice of his Law Officers or to bring them to the House today, and to say why he feels either that he does not need their advice or has taken it but has not seen fit to bring it to the House during the debate. These are very deep-seated and real worries that Labour Members have about this country's position concerning the European Convention on Human Rights, and it is incumbent upon the Government tonight


to tell us exactly where we stand on that issue.
Earlier in the debate the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) referred to the inner cities of England as having large percentages of representatives of the ethnic minority communities. He lighted on a figure, which he put at a third or even a half in some cities, as being in some ways a threat to the stability of England and to our future, and so on. I do not wish to be discourteous to the right hon. Gentleman, but at one moment he seemed rather to lose sight of his argument and to convey to the House that if we have this kind of proportion of ethnic minority settlement in our big cities we are heading for disaster. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman did not mean that, but I think that that is what he said, if I do not misquote him.
I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that in my constituency we have that figure now. We have 35 to 40 per cent. of the electorate within ethnic minority groups. From the work that I do with them, I can tell the House that there is no threat—as indicated by the right hon. Gentleman and by some Conservative Members—to our future. These are men and women who wanted to come to Britain, to play a part and to make a contribution, and not just to go round with their hands out, as was suggested by the hon. Member for Northampton, North. They came to Britain to find a new opportunity, to settle, to make a worthwhile life for themselves and their families, and to make a contribution.
A large number of them have now settled into the business community, they are working within the professions, and they are making contributions to the whole spectrum of social and domestic life in Britain. They have been assimilated without difficulty. The only difficulty that has arisen has been where it has been imported into city centres, such as that in Birmingham and elsewhere, by the National Front and by other racist organisations seeking to foment trouble among us. When that has happened there has certainly been difficulty, because no one will sit back and listen to arguments of that sort—many of which have been represented in this House this evening—without arguing back. But, apart from those imported difficulties that we

have had to face from time to time, the communities are happy and relatively well assimilated into their surroundings.
For the most part, they have been the most difficult surroundings into which to settle, because they have come into areas where the host community was already disadvantaged and underprivileged. Even so, they have made a contribution and they are seeking no more than natural justice. They are seeking no more favours than are any other members of the community. What they are seeking is the sort of protection that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Labour Benches have sought to argue for them today—the sort of protection that they need against miserable and squalid bits of paper such as the one that we have before us this evening, containing elements of racism and sexism which should not be tolerated by any sort of civilised society.

Mr. John Stokes: We seldom debate immigration in the House and I am glad that we are doing so tonight. I think that I have heard every speech. I used to think that on this subject I was a member of the moderate Right. I am glad to see that tonight I have been joined by many of my hon. Friends. I was delighted to hear their honest if unsophisticated and robust speeches.
I admire their fluency after only nine months. I could not speak with such fluency after nine years. We must hold them in great respect. They have a message for the House and especially for the Opposition. They have just been elected to the House and they know the real feelings of the people. The House will know my feelings on this subject.
As usual, the most important speech tonight was that of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). I go almost all the way with him in his analysis. Where I disagree with him is when he says that because of the vast amount of immigration over the last generation England will became ungovernable and English cities will become difficult to run. That is not my fear. We can avoid that.
My fear is not the damage to good race relations, important though they may be. My fear is the damage to the essential identity of this old, historic nation. I cannot think why those of us who love


our country and its history and wish to maintain its Englishness should be criticised as odd, obscure or difficult. Surely it is basic. We all belong to our neighbourhood, town, village or county. What is wrong in that? Nothing. It is what used to be called roots. We must protect and defend that.
The English vocabulary has been altered by newspeak, if one likes. When I was a young man a man of discrimination was a man to be looked up to. He was a man of taste and discernment. It is only recently that the word "discriminate" has become a kind of criminal word. When I was young one was proud to be an Englishman. Nowadays that is not so obvious.
Therefore, there is a case to be heard from the Government Benches which some of my hon. Friends may have put in a rough manner. Representing an industrial seat as I do, the trade unionists in my constituency would understand and sympathise with a great deal of what has been said by my hon. Friends. Sometimes Opposition Members, perhaps through nervousness or because they feel uncomfortable about the subject, laugh. We all know that they would not dare laugh in front of their own constituents on a matter that affects them so vitally.
The right hon. Member for Down, South set the scene so well for us. We have had immigration for 25 years. It is not the same as the Huguenots, the Jews and the Poles. It is different. Immigration involves enormous numbers of quite different people. It is something new in our history. It says a great deal for our kindness, tolerance and civilised approach that we can absorb such vast numbers of people in the space of one generation. Do we get no credt for that from both sides of the House?
Let us imagine, for example, what would have happened if the same number of people had settled in France. Imagine what the French would be saying. I believe that no other country but England could have had such a shock and got over it so well so far. We know of the pressures on housing, schools, the National Health Service and employment at a time of rapidly rising unemployment. Worse than that is the loss of identity for English people who have had to leave—I know this from direct experience, as

do many other hon. Members—their houses, their streets and neighbourhoods to make way for the newcomers. I went to see a Minister in the last Government about this and he was very kind and sympathetic. He said that the young people could adapt. Perhaps they can. It is the older Englishman who suffers—his whole way of life is being turned upside down.
In one street I know of the immigrants wanted to change a house into a mosque. There was tremendous local feeling about having a mosque in the centre of a very small English town. All the residents in that street had to leave. Eventually there was one man left—a retired cavalry trooper. He said to me in that marvellous Midland lilt "What have I done to deserve it, Sir?" I said "We, your betters, have let you down." Hon. Members may laugh, but Englishmen have feelings too. I do not understand why their feelings should be laughed at. These are matters of great substance, and the Opposition and the Liberal Party do themselves a disservice by laughing at matters that their constituents would not think amusing.
If we are to save our country and offer it a settled future we must bring immigration to a halt. Therefore, I recognise that these few rules—poor and feeble as they are—are a step towards that goal.
One has only to ask a Frenchman, a German, a Swiss or an Italian what they think about our immigration rules, and they will say that they are astonished by our attitude. They are much stricter in their control of people entering their countries, some of which are larger and richer than this country. It is a matter of common sense and reasonable judgment.
We were sent to this House to represent our constituents. After all, apart from defeat in war, one of the most vital things for a country is to protect and defend its way of life, its history, its beliefs, its culture and its togetherness. What is wrong with that? Nothing at all. That is what made us a great nation. I think that it is insulting to tell immigrants—many of whom I know well—that they should be integrated with us. Why should they? They are proud people. They have their own history, traditions, customs, morals and religion. We cannot expect them to integrate. They will remain aliens within our midst for centuries. That is inevitable,


and we must have the courage to face the facts.
I do not fear civil strife, but I do fear that the England we know and love will be lost in a welter of new and different races, whose loyalty will still be to their original homeland, and whose customs will remain unchanged. These are very real problems.
They may not be problems to some of those who pontificate from constituencies in those green fair lands—not always in England—where there are no immigrants at all. We in the Midlands do not want to be lectured by those people. We who stand for the Midlands seats have to stand for the English working class, who have been let down by those superior people living often in Sussex manor houses who presume to tell the English working classes how they will get on. The English working classes have very much better manners than those who purport to tell them how to behave. Those are the people that I am proud to represent tonight.
I am glad that in my party there are many hon. Members who will stand up and speak for their beliefs on this fundamental matter, which concerns every man, woman and child in this country.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I shall be brief because the House would like to hear the views of the Home Secretary, who has listened to the debate from the beginning. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) said all that was necessary about the implications of the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights. I only add that if Mr. Lester is right, if the views expressed in the debate can be called in aid on any ruling, and having listened to the hon. Members for Luton, East (Mr. Bright) and for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), I believe that the Government would lose their case after the first 60 seconds.
Those hon. Members belong to the brigade that believes that the Government have reneged on their election commitment. In a straightforward sense they have. It was foolish to have the commitments in the first instance. We had the quota and the register, and there was no shortage of knowledge. There was a White Paper and the Franks report. It

was a mistake to enter into the commitments, and I do not believe that they will be implemented.
I regret that the rules are before us. They will do little for numbers. The hon. Member for Luton, East is wrong to suggest that I am thereby suggesting that on that ground there is no need for the debate. I am arguing that Conservatives who support the Government on the ground that the rules will do something about swamping and about numbers are mistaken. The effect will be so marginal on numbers as to be not worth while. The Opposition argue that for other reasons the rules should not be implemented. They are a fig leaf to cover the nakedness not of Government policy but of what was promised before the election.
Sadly, the rules will be approved. I say that as someone who believes that the immigration control is firm and that the rules are irrelevant. The previous Labour Government published a Green Paper on nationality. There are many papers on the subject in the Home Office, and I for one would not worry if the present Government were able to examine the papers of the previous Administration.
It will not be easy to get a nationality measure through the House. I hope that when the White Paper appears we shall see a Bill following it. I hope, too, that we shall have a chance to consider it in a pre-legislation Committee. If my experience is anything to go by, we shall all be at sixes and sevens if we go baldly into Committee. It will make the EEC and trade union legislation of 1971 seem all too familiar. It will not take quite so long to pass through the House, but it will be lengthy.
If the House is to put its mind to questions of nationality and citizenship, we must remember that we have not had citizenship legislation over the years, but nationality measures stemming from the empire on which the sun never set. It is important that we get future legislation right. We must ensure that it fits in some degree into what the right hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel) was saying.
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), as always—this applies to many matters—made me think. When Nye Bevan was in the House he


said gently of a colleague that he reminded him of a pre-war Trojan car. He said that when he went on the road and got into the tramlines he always ended up in the same depot. The right hon. Gentleman, with differences of argument and emphasis, always comes back to the one point, namely, that there is tragedy and near revolution in what is happening. I do not believe that. There are problems from immigration, and I understood what the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) was saying. I was brought up in a working-class area where we were close unto ourselves. It is easy for others outside that environment to laugh at the fears of such people. I do not believe that hon. Members were laughing at the problems behind the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
There are problems that arise and they will continue to present themselves. They are little different from the problems in Europe. The Europeans have Yugoslavs and Turks, as the hon. Member for Northampton, North was saying. They have Greeks, Algerians and Moroccans. In Europe since the war we have geared the cheap part of our economy, or our simple processes, to cheap labour from the underdeveloped parts of the world. There are problems in inner cities. In most instances—this applies to my area, and I accept that there are not many immigrants in my constituency—the immigrants have moved into areas where problems already existed. They have not created the problems. They have become part of the problem areas.
I have no doubt that in the end the recent immigrants from the New Commonwealth will play their part in the same way as the Jews who came in at the turn of the century, although not in the same numbers, play their part now. There will not be instability. The Asians—small in number in my constituency—are law-abiding.
There are problems, and we shall face them in the way that we always have in this country. We shall have to return to the subject of race relations. We are not seeking a deadening uniformity. The hon. Member for Halesowen and Stour-bridge talked about being proud of being English. I cannot say that, because I am not an Englishman. I hope that my children, who have been brought up in

England, will be, but they will be proud in a different way from the hon. Gentleman. I do not say that with any disrespect. Those who come and live amongst us will have their own communities and their own attitudes, which will develop over the years. It will not be easy.
The rules that we are considering are small. They are a fig leaf. They add up to very little. They do harm to race relations. We should concentrate on good race relations. I hope that as many hon. Members as possible will vote against the rules tonight.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. William Whitelaw): I have deliberately taken very little time to wind up the debate in order to let as many hon. Members as possible speak during the debate, and because my hon. Friend the Minister of State in opening the debate set out the position very clearly.
The right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) welcomed various changes. He said that that resulted from time having been given to debate a White Paper before the rules were laid. I hope that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), who gave credit for the fact that the debate was taking place in Opposition time, will also give credit for the fact that the Government gave time for a full day's debate on the White Paper, and made changes in the rules as a result of that debate. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Leeds. South for what he said about that.
Certainly the figures released last week show that the numbers of immigrants have been reduced, but there is still great pressure to come to this country. The numbers are still substantial, and there are substantial numbers of husbands and fiancés. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Gardiner) made an important point about their entry and the conditions about their entry, based on his own experience in India. I am grateful for what he said about that.
The right hon. Member for Leeds, South also said that his party, if given the opportunity, would revoke the rules. If the present Leader of the Opposition still leads his party then, he will have created a remarkable occasion. He will


have about-turned not once but twice on this subject, because he it was who took exactly the same view in 1969 as I am taking today about this problem. The right hon. Member for Leeds, South says that since then he has changed his mind, thinking that he was wrong. The Leader of the Opposition has not seen fit to say whether he thinks that he was wrong, although I noticed that he had the temerity to put his name at the top of the list of names attached to the motion. It is for him to explain how, if he had to do it, he would turn about twice.
The leader of the Liberal Party raised the question of an inquiry. There will be an opportunity, both in the discussions on the White Paper on nationality, which we shall publish this summer, and subsequently I hope—though I cannot commit the Government to a particular time for legislation—during the passage of what the right hon. Member for Leeds, South is right to say will be very complicated and difficult legislation.
I do not intend tonight to go into some of the wider immigration issues. I shall confine myself to the rules, but I have noted what has been said. I can understand that the complexity of the issue of nationality will be accompanied by some extremely lively debates.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) also mentioned the importance of the nationality Bill as a longer-term measure, describing the rules as being for the shorter term.
My hon. Friends the Members for Reigate and for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) and others raised the question of the future following the introduction of the rules. We said at the election that we would introduce the rules. We have done so. We said that we would introduce a nationality Bill. We shall do so. We said that we would have a register and a quota. I am not changing what I have said before. I have said on several occasions that both the register and the quota remain part of the Conservative Party's policy. I advise the right hon. Member for Leeds, South that betting is an extremely unprofitable occupation—at least, so I understand.
Let me put one short point to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) before coming to the major mat

ter raised by various right hon. and hon. Members about our position with the rules before the European Court.
The hon. Lady asked about adopted girls. I believe it right to say that such cases would be considered sympathetically. I have in mind the case of a girl arriving in infancy who has lived here since. I reckon that in those cases discretion under the rules would be appropriate and would be exercised. Indeed, I think that I could go further and say that the discretion clearly would be exercised in certain other cases as well. But I think that they would be rightly considered on their merits.
I turn to the point made in various ways by the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals), the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) and the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) about the position of the rules with the European Commission and the European Court.
I have always admired one characteristic of the hon. Member for York, because I could never emulate it. He is always utterly convinced that he is right. That may be a good quality, and he has it, and he shows it on all possible occasions. However, I noticed that the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West, as an experienced former Law Officer, was a good deal more circumspect and, as one who has to take advice from lawyers from time to time, I was careful to listen attentively to the various pieces of advice which he gave the Government.
First, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that the Government should ensure that the rules were in accordance with the view of the court and would pass it. But then he said that any such position must be open to doubt. How can anyone ensure something that is admitted to be open to doubt? That is exactly what the right hon. and learned Gentleman, with his considerable legal knowledge, said.

Mr. Archer: Whatever part of my speech I said was open to doubt, it was not that part.

Mr. Whitelaw: I took down the right hon. and learned Gentleman's words carefully and, as I was seeking advice, I thought that I did it very wisely.
I do not treat the report of the Sub-Committee in any cavalier way. I regard it as important. But it must be reasonable to say, as I understand is normal in legal cases, that one deals with an actual case when it comes before a court, and one does not make definite pronouncements on what, inevitably, are hypothetical cases. It must be right for us to look, listen and put forward our arguments when a specific case comes before the court, if it does. I should have thought that that was thoroughly sensible.
I have read the evidence to the Sub-Committee. No one giving evidence to the Sub-Committee said anywhere that he was certain. Several said that it was their view, but that they were expressing a view on a hypothetical and not an actual case. It is an actual case that is bound to matter in the event—[Interruption.] I understood the right hon. and learned Gentleman to have some legal knowledge. If he seeks to laugh at what I say, all I can tell him is that I cannot see anything wrong with an argument to the effect that in law one is entitled to deal with an

actual case, but not a hypothetical one. That must be the sensible position for the Government to take. That is the position that we are taking.

Perhaps I should conclude by saying that we believe that these rules deal with the situation with which we are faced. We promised them. We promised the provision on husbands and fiancés. We believe it to be right, particularly when judged against the considerable pressure that there still is to come to this country. We have made a number of other changes in the rules, which have not been mentioned tonight, which I believe are valuable, which make the position clearer for entry clearance officers and which are important also in their own right.

For all those reasons I hope that the House will reject the motion and pass these rules—

It being half-past Eleven o'clock, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question pursuant to Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted Business).

The House divided: Ayes 255, Noes 307.

Division No. 219]
AYES
[11.30 pm


Abse, Leo
Cowans, Harry
Foster, Derek


Adams, Allen
Crowther, J. S.
Foulkes, George


Allaun, Frank
Cryer, Bob
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)


Alton, David
Cunliffe, Lawrence
Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald


Anderson, Donald
Cunningham, George (Islington S)
Garrett, John (Norwich S)


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)


Armstrong, Rt Hon Ernest
Davidson, Arthur
George, Bruce


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John


Ashton, Joe
Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)
Ginsburg, David


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)
Golding, John


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Deakins, Eric
Gourlay, Harry


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Grant, George (Morpeth)


Beith, A. J.
Dempsey, James
Grant, John (Islington C)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Dewar, Donald
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)


Bidwell, Sydney
Dixon, Donald
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Dobson, Frank
Hardy, Peter


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Dormand, Jack
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)
Douglas, Dick
Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith


Bradley, Tom
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Dubs, Alfred
Haynes, Frank


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Duffy, A. E. P.
Healey, Rt Hon Denis


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Dunnett, Jack
Heffer, Eric S.


Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)


Brown, Ron (Edinburgh, Leith)
Eadle, Alex
Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)


Buchan, Norman
Eastham, Ken
Home Robertson, John


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Homewood, William


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Hooley, Frank


Campbell, Ian
English, Michael
Horam, John


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Ennals, Rt Hon David
Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)


Canavan, Dennis
Evans, loan (Aberdare)
Huckfield, Les


Cant, R. B.
Evans, John (Newton)
Hudson Davies, Gwilym Ednyfed


Carmichael, Nell
Ewing, Harry
Hughes, Mark (Durham)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Faulds, Andrew
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen North)


Cartwright, John
Field, Frank
Hughes, Roy (Newport)


Clark, Dr David (South Shields)
Fitch, Alan
Janner, Hon Greville


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Flannery, Martin
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas


Cohen, Stanley
Fletcher, L. R. (Ilkeston)
John, Brynmor


Coleman, Donald
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Johnson, James (Hull West)


Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Johnson, Walter (Derby South)


Conlan, Bernard
Ford, Ben
Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rhondda)


Cook, Robin F.
Forrester, John
Jones, Barry (East Flint)




Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)
Spearing, Nigel


Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Moyle, Rt Hon Roland
Sprlggs, Leslie


Kerr, Russell
Newens, Stanley
Stallard, A. W.


Kinnock, Nell
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon
Steel, Rt Hon David


Lambie, David
Ogden, Eric
Stoddart, David


Lamborn, Harry
O'Halloran, Michael
Stolt, Roger


Lamond, James
O'Neill, Martin
Strang, Gavin


Leadbitter, Ted
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Straw, Jack


Lelghton, Ronald
Palmer, Arthur
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Park, George
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)


Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Parker, John
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Litherland, Robert
Parry, Robert
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)


Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Pavitt, Laurie
Thomas, Dr Roger (Carmarthen)


Lyon, Alexander (York)
Pendry, Tom
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)
Powell, Faymond (Ogmore)
Tilley, John


Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson
Prescott, John
Tinn, James


McCartney, Hugh
Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)
Torney, Tom


McDonald, Dr Oonagh
Race, Reg
Urwin, Rt Hon Tom


McElhone, Frank
Padice, Giles
Walnwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


McKelvoy, William
Richardson, Jo
Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)


MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor
Rober's, Albert (Normanton)
Watkins, David


Maclennan, Robert
Roberts, Allan (Bootle)
Weetch, Ken


McMahon, Andrew
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)
Wellbeloved, James


McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, Central)
Robertson, George
Welsh, Michael


McNally, Thomas
Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)
White, Frank R. (Bury &amp; Radcliffe)


McNamara, Kevin
Rodgers, Rt Hon William
White, James (Glasgow, Pollock)


McWilliam, John
Rooker, J. W.
Whitehead, Phillip


Magee, Bryan
Roper, John
Whitlock, William


Marks, Kenneth
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)
Wigley, Dafydd


Marshall, David (Gl'sgow,Shettles'n)
Rowlands, Ted
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Ryman, John
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Sandelson, Nevilie
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Martin, Michael (Gl'gow Sprlngb'rn)
Sever, John
Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)


Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Sheerman, Barry
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Maxton, John
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert (A'ton-u-L)
Winnick, David


Maynard, Miss Joan
Shore, Rt Hon Peter (Step and Pop)
Woodall, Alec


Meacher, Michael
Short, Mrs Renee
Woolmer, Kenneth


Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Mikardo, Ian
Silkin, Rt Hon S.C. (Dulwich)
Wright, Sheila


Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Silverman, Julius
Young, David (Bolton East)


Miller, Dr M. S. (East Kilbride)
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)



Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)
Snape, Peter
Mr. Ted Graham and


Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Soley, Clive
Mr. George Morton.


Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)






NOES


Adley, Robert
Bruce-Gardyne, John
Edwards, Rt Hon N. (Pembroke)


Altken, Jonathan
Bryan, Sir Paul
Eggar, Timothy


Alexander, Richard
Buck, Antony
Elliott, Sir William


Alison, Michael
Budgen, Nick
Emery, Peter


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Bulmer, Esmond
Eyre, Reginald


Ancram, Michael
Burden, F. A.
Fairbairn, Nicholas


Arnold, Tom
Butcher, John
Fairgrieve, Russell


Aspinwall, Jack
Butler, Hon Adam
Faith, Mrs Sheila


Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)
Cadbury, Joceiyn
Farr, John


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Carlisle, John (Luton West)
Fell, Anthony


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Fenner, Mrs Peggy


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Carlisle, Rt Hon Mark (Runcorn)
Finsberg, Geoffrey


Bell, Sir Ronald
Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Fisher, Sir Nigel


Bendall, Vivian
Channon, Paul
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Chapman, Sydney
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles


Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)
Churchill, W. S.
Fookes, Miss Janet


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Suttton)
Forman, Nigel


Best, Keith
Clark, Sir William (Croydon South)
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman


Bevan, David Gliroy
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Fox, Marcus


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Clegg, Sir Walter
Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)


Biggs-Davison, John
Cockeram, Eric
Fraser, Peter (South Angus)


Blackburn, John
Colvin, Michael
Fry, Peter


Blaker, Peter
Cope, John
Galbraith, Hon T. Q. D.


Body, Richard
Corrle, John
Gardiner, George (Reigate)


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Costain, A. P.
Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Critchley, Julian
Garel-Jones, Tristan


Bowden, Andrew
Crouch, David
Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian


Boyson, Dr Rhodes
Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Giyn, Dr Alan


Braine, Sir Bernard
Dickens, Geoffrey
Goodhart, Philip


Bright, Graham
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Goodhew, Victor


Brinton, Tim
Dover, Denshore
Goodlad, Alastair


Brittan, Leon
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Gorst, John


Brooke, Hon Peter
Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Gow, Ian


Brotherton, Michael
Durant, Tony
Gower, Sir Raymond


Brown, Michael (Brigg &amp; Sc'thorpe)
Dykes, Hugh
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)


Browne, John (Winchester)
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Gray, Hamish







Greenway, Harry
Mates, Michael
Rost, Peter


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury SI Edmunds)
Mather, Carol
Royle, Sir Anthony


Griffithe, Peter (Portsmouth N)
Maude, Rt Hon Angus
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy


Grist, Ian
Mawby, Ray
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman


Grylls, Michael
Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Gummer, John Selwyn
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Hamilton, Hon Archie (Eps'm&amp;Ew'll)
Mayhew, Patrick
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Mellor, David
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Hampson, Dr Keith
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Shepherd, Richard (Aidridge-Br'hills)


Hannam, John
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove &amp; Redditch)
Shersby, Michael


Haseihurst, Alan
Mills, Iain (Meriden)
Silvester, Fred


Hastings, Stephen
Mills, Peter (West Devon)
Sims, Roger


Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Miscampbell, Norman
Speed, Keith


Hawksley, Warren
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Speller, Tony


Hayhoe, Barney
Moate, Roger
Spence, John


Heddle, John
Molyneaux, James
Splcer, Jim (West Dorset)


Henderson, Barry
Monro, Hector
Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)


Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael
Montgomery, Fergus
Sproat, Iain


Hicks, Robert
Moore, John
Squire, Robin


Hill, James
Morgan, Geraint
Stainton, Keith


Holland, Philip (Cariton)
Morris, Michael (Northampton, Sth)
Stanbrook, Ivor


Hooson, Tom
Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)
Stanley, John


Hordern, Peter
Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)
Steen, Anthony


Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Mudd, David
Stevens, Martin


Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)
Murphy, Christopher
Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)


Howell, Raiph (North Norfolk)
Myles, David
Stokes, John


Hunt, David (Wirral)
Neale, Gerrard
Stradling Thomas, J.


Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Needham, Richard
Tapsell, Peter


Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Nelson, Anthony
Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)


Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Neubert, Michael
Tebbit, Norman


Jessel, Toby
Newton, Tony
Temple-Morris, Peter


Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Normanton, Tom
Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret


Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Nott, Rt Hon John
Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)


Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Onslow, Cranley
Thompson, Donald


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Oppenhelm, Rt Hon Mrs Sally
Thorne, Neil (llford South)


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Osborn, John
Thornton, Maicoim


Kershaw, Anthony
Page, John (Harrow, West)
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Kimball, Marcus
Page, Rt Hon Sir R. Graham
Trippier, David


King, Rt Hon Tom
Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)
Trotter, Neville


Knight, Mrs Jill
Parris, Matthew
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Knox, David
Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Viggers, Peter


Lamont, Norman
Patten, John (Oxford)
Waddington, David


Lang, Ian
Pattie, Geoffrey
Wakeham, John


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Pawsey, James
Waldegrave, Hon William


Latham, Michael
Percival, Sir Ian
Walker, Bill (Perth &amp; E Perthshire;


Lawrence, Ivan
Peyton, Rt Hon John
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek


Lawson, Nigel
Pink, R. Bonner
Wall, Patrick


Lee, John
Pollock, Alexander
Waller, Gary


Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Porter, George
Walters, Dennis


Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg
Ward, John


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Warren, Kenneth


Lloyd, Ian (Havant &amp; Waterloo)
Prior, Rt Hon James
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Loveridge, John
Proctor, K. Harvey
Wells, Bowen (Hert'rd &amp; Stev'nage)


Luce, Richard
Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Wheeler, John


Lyell, Nicholas
Raison, Timothy
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


McCrindle, Robert
Rathbone, Tim
Whitney, Raymond


Macfarlane, Neil
Rees. Peter (Dover and Deal)
Wickenden, Keith


MacGregor, John
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Wiggin, Jerry


MacKay, John (Argyll)
Renton, Tim
Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)


McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)
Rhodes James, Robert
Winterton, Nicholas


McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Wolfson, Mark


McQuarrie, Albert
Ridsdale. Julian
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Madel, David
Rlfklnd, Malcolm
Younger, Rt Hon George


Malor, John
Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey



Marland, Paul
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Marlow, Tony
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and


Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)
Mr. Anthony Berry.


Marten, Nell (Banbury)
Rossi, Hugh

Question accordingly negatived.

PROTECTION OF TRADING INTERESTS BILL

Lords amendments considered.

Clause 1

OVERSEAS MEASURES AFFECTING UNITED KINGDOM TRADING INTERESTS

Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 2, line 4, leave out from "above" to end of line 6.

The Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. John Nott): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr Bernard Weatherill): Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House if we were to take the 17 Lords amendments together.

Mr. Jeffrey Thomas: The Opposition have no objection, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In fact, we welcome that course.

Mr. Nott: These amendments are uncontroversial. Most of them are improvements to the wording of the Bill. The Bill's provisions are legal and complicated in character, although they are simple in theory. Because of the considerable legal expertise in another place the Bill returns clarified and more effective in a number of respects. Most of the 17 amendments are either for clarification or declaratory. There are only two substantive amendments and one of them is basically technical.
11.45 pm
The first substantive amendment is to clause 6, which has been amended in two ways. It will now operate more simply and effectively in cases where there is more than one judgment debtor. Secondly, the definition of judgment creditor is tightened to take account of cases where the benefit of a judgment is assigned to another person or a contribution claimed by one defendant from another.
The other substantive amendment permits the United Kingdom to enter into a bilateral agreement for the reciprocal enforcement of "recovery-back" judgments, as provided for under clause 6, with countries with similar legislation.
I am glad that, as in this House, there was general agreement in the Lords about

the desirability and scope of the Bill. This is the first time that I have dealt with Lords amendments and I have no doubt that I shall be out of order. I seek the views of hon. Members on the group of amendments and I shall seek to resolve any difficulties later.

Mr. Eric Ogden: The United States Government have an interest in the Bill. What representations have been made by the United States Government, directly or indirectly, since the Bill was given a Second Reading? I understand that they have made no direct representations to the Secretary of State since Second Reading. Have the United States Government made any representations about this group of amendments?

Mr. Nott: The United States Government have not made any representations since Second Reading, so far as I am aware. We have been in touch with a host of people on the Bill's technicalities. I am not aware of any specific, technical proposals by the United States Government. I shall let the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) know in detail of any specific technical representations that have been made, but so far as I am aware there have been no general or technical representations. However, I shall have to check, and I shall let the hon. Gentleman know.

Mr. David Crouch: I read very carefully the debates in another place, and in particular the proceedings in Committee. Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran referred to a description of the Bill in this place by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and commented upon by me, to the effect that I was concerned that the Bill was not strong enough. I was concerned in particular with a word that my right hon. Friend used, in that he regarded some aspects of clause 6 as symbolic. Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran shared my fear that we might enact the Bill as a symbol rather than as a powerful device to protect British trading interests. Will my right hon. Friend say whether these amendments remove the symbolism, that we are producing the legislation to protect ourselves and that there is more than just symbolism in it?

Mr. Nott: All the comments made in the Lords were for strengthening rather than weakening the Bill. Lords Amendment No. 15 represents a substantial strengthening of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) was concerned on that score. I endeavoured to give in Committee and on other occasions the reasons why it was difficult to strengthen the Bill in the ways that he had sought.
The amendment is important. Since publication of the Bill we have been approached by several countries which have also been considering legislative action to protect their interests in the way that we are seeking to do here. It has been suggested to us that should some of these other countries introduce provisions along the lines of clause 6 it might be desirable to enter into a bilateral agreement for the reciprocal enforcement of judgments under such decisions.
The new clause is designed to enable us to give effect to such bilateral agreements should they ever become both feasible and desirable. This could represent a substantial strengthening in the sense that if, for instance, we were not easily able to attach the assets of a particular company in the United Kingdom, means might become available as a result of the new clause whereby as a result of a bilateral agreement with another country those assets could be attached elsewhere. This is a strengthening of the Bill.
Some of the minor drafting amendments which have come back from the Lords are explanations and represent a minor strengthening of the provisions and wording of the Bill.

Mr. Crouch: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member has spoken once.

Mr. Jeffrey Thomas: We on the Labour side give a general welcome to the Bill, with the caveat that it does not go far enough. As welcome as the amendments made in another place may be, and they certainly strengthen the Bill, we regret that the Lords did not take their courage in both hands and go just a little further. What obtained in the earlier stages of the Bill still, we believe, obtains today in spite of these amendments.
Clause 6 still does not go anywhere near far enough, and in our view will to

a large extent be ineffective. One of the difficulties is that the resulting clawback judgments would not be recognised in the United States, and any United States defendants to proceedings here would quite easily be able to arrange their affairs so as to have no assets within a jurisdiction where it would be possible for us to exercise a clawback.
The only reason for that is that the Government have shrunk from going the whole way by allowing clawback proceedings to be brought against subsidiaries of American plaintiffs.
What the Government say—and they said it in another place by way of justification—is that we must not do in Britain what we condemn under American jurisprudence, where the corporate veil is not only lifted in ways that we would regard as almost indecent, but where they often do not appear to recognise the existence of any veil at all.
The House will recall that the Secretary of State recognised that there would be a degree of ineffectiveness in practice, but tended to justify this halfway house on the ground that clause 6 would act as a deterrent and would mark our disapproval of American anti-trust legislation. We agree that it is essential to mark our disapproval in that way. If what we say is wrong, the clause should not be included in the Bill. If what the Government say is right, theirs is the duty to make the clause effective.
It is difficult to understand how the clause, as presently drafted, would act as any real deterrent. Multiple damages in anti-trust cases follow as a matter of course and are not in the discretion of the courts unless the plaintiff fails to claim them. In reality, that is unlikely to follow.
I ask the Government to think again about the clause, even at this late stage; because they may come to the conclusion—and I hope that they will—that in this wholly new venture, and in the wholly peculiar nature of this legislation, it would be defensible for us to adopt the same course as the Americans in the context of judgments based on legislation which we regard as reprehensible because of its penal character and extraterritorial implications, but not—I hasten to underline—in any other context.

Sir Graham Page: I understand that the clause will be a deterrent to actions being brought in which multiple damages can be awarded. So far as I have had an opportunity to discuss the matter with American lawyers, I understand that they are frightened of the whole Bill, and especially clause 6. Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it will be a deterrent to the actions being brought, even if the damages are automatic when judgment is given against the defendant?

Mr. Thomas: I take the right hon. Gentleman's point. I hope that it will be a deterrent to some extent. In terms of practice, and in terms of American legislation, provided that the Americans take steps of the sort that I anticipated in by speech on Third Reading, I do not think that the clause will help a great deal. That is what concerns me. In short, the Government are willing to strike, but not to wound. Perhaps they have taken Spenser's advice, which he gave in "The Faerie Queene" when he said:
Be bold, be bold, and everywhere, be bold.
But not too bold.
12 midnight
It may be that this is indeed an historic Bill. It may be not the first of the Government's U-turns, but the first of the protectionist measures that they will be forced to take. Anyhow, that is another matter.
I end as I began. We are anxious that the Bill should be successful and meet the mischiefs that it is intended to meet, but we have serious doubts in that regard.

Mr. Nott: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Nott.

Mr. Nott: Perhaps not.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 17 agreed to.

Mr. Ogden: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would you clarify one point about our proceedings? I make no complaint about how they have gone. The Minister spoke twice—and the House wanted to hear him—and you then offered him the opportunity to speak for a third, time. However, when the hon. Member

for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) attempted to intervene a second time, you suggested that that might not be welcome. Would you clarify that matter?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: As the amendments where being taken together, I took the view that the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) had his opportunity of speaking to them, whereas the Secretary of State was replying to the speeches that had been made.

BEES BILL

Lords amendment considered.

Clause 1

CONTROL OF PESTS AND DISEASES AFFECTING BEES

Lords amendment: No. 1 in page 2, line 19, leave out "to" and insert "and".

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minstry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Jerry Wiggin): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendment No. 2, in the schedule, page 5, line 35, at end insert—
9A. Payment of compensation for bees or other things subject to control destroyed in accordance with section 1(4).
I call the attention of the House to the fact that privilege is involved in these amendments.

Mr. Wiggin: The Bees Bill has been generally welcome both in this House and in another place. It has rightly been seen as a highly desirable measure to prevent the introduction into this country of bee diseases which do not occur here and to combat those which are endemic. One issue only has caused a slight rift in this otherwise harmonious acclaim for the Bill. That is the question whether the Bill should provide for the possibility of compensation for bees compulsorily destroyed by authorised officers in the interests of controlling disease and preventing its spread.
As introduced, the Bill continued the policy of successive Governments on the question of compensation. The only difference was that this time the Bill expressly provided in clause 1(6) that no compensation shall be payable. During the course of our debates on the Bill, many arguments have been advanced as to why compensation should be paid in particular circumstances—some real, some hypothetical—and we have explained why we have not found these arguments persuasive. However, it has also been argued that the possibility of compensation being paid should not be ruled out for ever and that there should be a permissive power so that in future it would be open for Governments to decide whether or not to have compensation in any given circumstances.
It is true that the Bill, as introduced, would have closed the door, but not perhaps for ever because Parliament could have decided at any time on an amendment. But we do not often have new legislation on bee diseases. Indeed, the present Bill is only the second such measure in some 40 years. We see the force of this argument and the Government are therefore willing for the Bill to stand as amended.
The Lords amendments allow compensation to be paid for bees and other things destroyed because they are diseased or have been exposed to infection. Before any compensation could be paid the detailed provisions would have to be made by order. The amendment to clause 1 would allow for the possibility of compensation in the circumstances covered by clause 1(4) and the amendment to the schedule would allow for orders to include detailed provision for payment of compensation. However—and here I break a small promise not to crack another pun about bees during the progress of the Bill—the sting is in the tail. I must make it clear to the House that, in accepting the Lords amendments, the Government do not intend to pay compensation for bees and other things destroyed in accordance with this legislation.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords amendment No. 2 agreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: As the House is willing to waive its privileges, I shall cause an entry to be made in the Journal to that effect.

SMALL BUSINESSES

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Boscawen.]

Mr. Graham Bright: In recent years the contribution that small businesses make to the prosperity of our country has become increasingly apparent. Many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House have sought ways and means of encouraging and supporting firms in this sector of the economy. The reasons for that have been straightforward enough. Small businesses employ about one-quarter of our work force and produce one-fifth of our output. They provide the most fertile source of new services and new products in the economy. They allow managerial innovation. Both executives and skilled workers from large industry can use their skills and expertise to create a company of their own and new jobs for others. Because it is a more labour-intensive sector, small businesses play a proportionately greater role in providing essential new jobs.
In asking the Minister to recognise the vital contribution that small businesses can make to our future prosperity, it is right to suggest that the restrictions on them by way of taxation and of a bureaucratic nature be lightened as well. That seems to be the most sensible way to stimulate their growth and to reduce unemployment.
It is unfortunately true that small businesses have been subject to a long-term squeeze in Britain. Their share of manufacturing output and of employment has been almost halved since the 1930s. Our competitors have been much more successful in creating new small businesses and in enjoying the benefits from the jobs and wealth that they provide. Three years ago, for example, West Germany, whose population is only 10 per cent. larger than ours, had 40 per cent. more small firms, and the rate at which new small businesses were created in the United States of America was three times as great as ours. The vast majority of new jobs and of new products came from small firms in the last decade in the United States of America. The figures speak for themselves. Eighty-eight per


cent. of new jobs in America came from firms less than 10 years old, and 66 per cent. of new jobs were created by firms employing fewer than 20 people. Surely, there is a clear lesson for us to learn. The most effective way of stimulating economic growth in Britain is by stimulating our small businesses by helping them with their problems.
I believe that we should consider selective measures to cope with the two biggest problems that small businesses have to face—the problems of taxation and finance on the one hand, and the burden placed upon them by the bureaucratic demands of the State on the other. It is really quite extraordinary that capital transfer tax should prevent family firms from passing from one generation to the next because its annual gifts exemption limit is set so low at £2,000 a year. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will consider having the courage to redeem the pledge that he made at Norwich in March 1976
to repeal the tax and to redesign a simpler and fairer pattern of capital taxes as a whole".
There should be measures to prevent capital transfer tax and capital gains tax from being levied on one transaction in some circumstances, which appears to me to be most unfair. Because of inflation, capital gains tax poses an ever-growing threat to the integrity of family firms. It is doubtful, too, whether the provision to offset the losses incurred by small businesses in their first three years against income in the preceding three years, introduced in 1978, is generous enough.
The burden of collecting taxes such as VAT imposed on the small business man is a surprisingly effective deterrent, as I believe studies conducted in the Department of Industry have shown. I do not think that we should for one moment underestimate this deterrent effect. The feeling has been indicated to me by dozens of small business men in my constituency.
The demand for information by the Inland Revenue, the Customs and Excise and other Government Departments—particularly the effects of form filling—consume time that could have been more profitably spent by small business men in running their businesses and creating wealth. But I have no doubt that the

most formidable obstacle of all is finance for new small businesses—an area in which the clearing banks seem relatively weak, and where no other institutions, least of all the Government, are properly equipped.
I recognise, of course, that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware of the problems. Some action has already been taken. I welcomed and supported the income tax cuts last year and the rise in the investment income surcharge threshold level to £5,000. The blight imposed on so many areas by the threat of development land tax has been alleviated by raising the threshold from £10,000 to £50,000. Small firms are looking forward to the reform of planning procedures, envisaged in the Local Government, Planning and Land (No. 2) Bill now before the House. I would appreciate some comments about that from the Minister. They appreciate the relaxation that there will be of the previously stringent requirements of the Employment Protection Act on dismissals and redundancies.
There is also the prospect that a future Companies Bill will allow small firms to protect their vital commercial information by creating proprietary companies. Some reduction in the volume of information demanded by the Government has already occurred. By granting stock relief in the last Budget, and by raising the qualifying profit limit for corporation tax from the level of £60,000 to £100,000 a year, the Government have relieved the tax position of such companies.
I have been most encouraged by the experiments that the Department of Industry has been conducting in establishing small workshop units in shipbuilding areas, free from some of the restrictions on factories, and by the contacts that it has encouraged between its small firms service, the Post Office staff superannuation fund and small business men in the Eastern region. Each of these steps is welcome as a move towards fulfilling the Conservative Party's manifesto commitment to help small businesses in particular.
It is only right to press my hon. Friend to consider taking further measures. As a small business man myself, I know how important are the points that I have mentioned. If capital transfer tax were to be abolished that would do more than any other measure could to preserve our exist


ing small family businesses. At the very least, provision ought to be made for paying the tax within a gift. This is an anomaly whereby if provision is made for the tax on a gift, the whole is taxed, thereby always leaving the recipient the problem of finding further money for taxation. I am sure that there is an overwhelming case for raising the threshold for corporation tax to take account of inflation. The VAT exemption threshold should also be raised.
There are good grounds for extending the right of small businesses to offset losses in their early years against income tax previously paid from three to five years. There is no reason why we should not at least consider introducing tax incentives of the kind introduced in France in July 1978, but to encourage investment in small businesses. Perhaps the figure of £1,000 a year could be looked at in this respect.
Some thought ought also to be given to preventing very large firms from achieving a dominant position in any market served by a large number of small or medium-sized firms. This may soon be demanded by law in West Germany and would be an appropriate duty for the Monopolies Commission here.
It may well be that the unfair dismissals procedure under the Employment Protection Act should be applied after two years rather than one year, or alternatively that a moratorium should be introduced for businesses with fewer than 25 employees.
Far too many statistical demands are still being made on small businesses, and the authority under which they are sought is often unclear. I think that the suggestions that have been made whereby a mandatory form would be clearly marked would assist.
Most important of all is the need to create a viable loan guarantee system—which could be better described as a small business credit insurance—to support the creation of new small businesses. The clearing banks and other institutions have the money; the Council for Small Industries in Rural Areas and the Department of Industry's regional small firm counselling service have the expertise. We have the examples of America, France and Japan in running such schemes.
Creating such a scheme would be the key to invigorating the entire small business sector. Small businesses would respond with a sense of adventure if we could offer them the right opportunities. We need to ensure that small businesses with the capacity to produce a wider range of goods or services can find the money for expansion. I am sure that the necessary machinery could be set up.
I am equally sure that it is possible to design a self-financing scheme. Loans could be made to small businesses on straightforward commercial grounds. How much could be lent would depend on their existing assets and their capacity to meet the interest charges and capital repayments from the business's cash flow.
I think that it is quite wrong that we should always require personal guarantees or second charges on the private home of small business men. It would be right to include a small element—say. 2 per cent.—to cover possible losses. But I am certain that by using the banks and by confining the Government to an advisory and regulatory role, the administrative costs could be kept to a minimum.
The growth in business activity, in jobs created and in tax revenue generated would almost certainly more than meet any costs sustained. I can think of nothing more likely to change the climate in the small business sector for the better than to create a loan guarantee scheme. If we could open up the avenues of opportunity and free small businessmen from the burden of pledging their homes and savings, we would make the biggest single contribution to our country's economic recovery. I urge my right hon. Friends to consider this at the earliest possible moment.
There is no aspect of life in any business that is more resented than the provision of information and of taxes to the State at the expense and in the time of the taxpayer. This is a particularly heavy burden on small businesses where resources are limited. But there is an additional burden on them that I believe requires immediate relief.
Under the Finance Acts of 1972 and 1976, the Customs and Excise officers responsible for collecting value added tax and the officers of the Inland Revenue were granted sweeping powers to enter


premises, seize documents and require information. Although these powers are not identical, I believe that there is an irresistible case for regulating these powers by formulating a code of practice for the officers of the two services that can be enforced in the courts.
It is outrageous for any citizen to be subjected to dawn swoops, to the search of his personal papers and those of his family, right down to school reports and cross-country results, and to questioning without knowing what information is being sought or why. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) raised this whole question in an Adjournment debate on 21 December 1979.
There is no defence for tax evasion, but there is no justification for the abuses committed by the Customs and Excise under the shadow of statutory authority. I suggest that before any entry is made or papers seized the officers of the two services should establish a prima facie case in writing before a High Court judge for supposing that an offence has occurred. They should identify the people whose activities they wish to investigate.
If a warrant is granted by a High Court judge it should specify the premises they may enter, the papers they may require and the times during the day—say, 9 am to 5 pm—during which they may call. A copy of the warrant should be handed to the person whose premises are to be entered for search when entry is undertaken. Copies of any papers removed must be supplied to their owner within seven to 14 days. No one should be questioned without knowing what he or she is being questioned about and without the opportunity of having his or her solicitor present. If members of the owner's family are to be questioned, they should be over 18 years of age and have an interest as an employee or a director of that business. The questioning of staff should take place only in the presence of a representative of the proprietor.
A code of practice based on the principles that the suspected offence be defined, that the grounds and terms of entry and seizure be known to all parties, that the conduct of the inquiry is strictly confined to the alleged offence, and that the questioning of relatives and employed employees is controlled, would

eliminate the indefensible behaviour that has occurred in too many cases.
In the short time available to me I have tried to spell out some of the problems of small businesses. There are many more. I profoundly believe that if some consideration could be given to helping with these problems the country would reap much reward. I look forward with interest to my hon. Friend's response.

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. David Mitchell): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, East (Mr. Bright) on having raised the vital subject of small businesses and their effect on jobs and the long-term wealth-creating capacity of this country. I am delighted to see that he is being supported by the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, North-West (Mr. Grylls), whose considerable interest in and concern about this matter are well known to the House.
My hon. Friend has raised this matter at an appropriate time—I do not mean at this hour of the morning, but after nine months' gestation of this Government's policies, We are now able to see a little modest progress along the road down which my hon. Friend wishes us to move.
My hon. Friend asks for confirmation that the Government recognise the benefits of small businesses for this country's economy. I do so with enthusiasm. These benefits are often taken for granted by the public. The small firm provides a degree of service, choice and diversity for the consumer which is of enormous benefit, and we should not take that for granted.
Of far greater importance to the national economy is the fact that small firms are the seed corn from which larger firms of the future will come. When one looks at the national economy, one sees that businesses have a life cycle. Like human beings, they get old, tired, out of date and die. Their places are taken by the young, the thrusting and the vigorous with new ideas, new products, new technology and new ways. We are in a phase of contraction in which many of our older industries must concede the take off of younger, newer businesses. In a decade's time some firms will die, and others will take off. Some small businesses will


become middle-sized family businesses, and even the giants of the future.
My hon. Friend referred to the fact that there are more small businesses on the Continent. Germany is considered to be the median of Europe. If that country has 40 per cent. more small firms than we have, it must follow that the European average is 40 per cent. more. There is no excuse for our being so far behind. There is no excuse for it, particularly in the light of the massive increases in imports into this country, not from the low-cost countries of the Far East but from Europe. There is no reason why British manufacturers should not identify products coming here and set up in business to satisfy that market.
My hon. Friend referred to the MIT study in America by Professor Birch, which showed that on balance new jobs were created in businesses with fewer than 20 employees. He is right. It is an interesting and slightly disturbing fact that that study also reveals that the largest number of the new jobs were created not in manufacturing industries but in service industries. We must recognise in future a greater emphasis on the job-creating role of service industries.
It is interesting that the study in America has been in some measure confirmed by the study undertaken in Cleveland in the United Kingdom. The study indicated that on balance the larger companies were losing jobs and that the smaller businesses were gaining them.
My hon. Friend asked why there were a relatively small number of new businesses in Britain compared with the Continent. He sketched a series of changes that he wished to see. Our analysis is that there are so few new businesses in this country because Parliament, under Governments of both main parties, has piled on more and more burdens for small businesses to carry. More and more hurdles have been placed in the way of those who start a business. Successive Labour Governments have increased taxation. The hurdles have become higher and the incentive to jump them has become less and less. As a consequence—I believe that people act logically in these matters—it has been reasonable for the logical person not to start a business.
My hon. Friend divided his appeal to the Government to deal with the problems into three areas—taxation, burdens and cash within the business. I shall endeavour to deal with as many of the matters that he raised as possible in the time available.
Tribute has been paid on previous occasions to my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the changes that he made in his Budget in 1979. The factor that has not sufficiently been recognised is that he not merely reduced the top rate of tax from 83 per cent. to 60 per cent., but more than doubled—from 17 per cent. to 40 per cent. —take-home pay for the man who really succeeds. That is a shining star for the man who seeks to start a business to aim for. He knows that if he really succeeds it will be worth while.
My hon. Friend referred to capital transfer tax and capital gains tax. I join him in believing that we are dealing with the most human of motivations, namely, that a man builds up a business with a view to passing it on to the next generation of his family.
There is in many of us—this may not apply to all—what I describe as a dynastic streak. That is what my wife calls it. It is a desire to ensure that one's family will continue with the business and that what one has spent so much time building up will continue. That desire can be destroyed by capital transfer tax and capital gains tax.
Labour Members are not present this morning because small businesses do not interest them that much. If they were here they would speak about the problem of the young man who is brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth. I do not think that it is particularly good for people to be brought up soft and easy. The trouble is that Labour Members seek to throw the baby out with the bath water. They destroy the motivation for the man in his forties, fifties and sixties to continue to build up his business and create Britain's wealth as he does so.
My hon. Friend asked for the VAT exemption to be lifted from the present £10,000 to £50,000. I have vivid recollections of doing a VAT return in my own business before I came to my present post. My hon. Friend drew attention to


the benefits of such a change in reducing the burden on the business man. How ever, unfortunately, the pass was sold by the Labour government, who entered into an agreement with the Common Market Commission that the exemption would be no more than the original £5,000 indexed for inflation. That took us to £10,000 two years ago, and I suppose that it would be about £12,000 this year. The only way in which we can get out of that is to ask the other members of the Common Market to agree to what my hon. Friend wishes. The prospect of obtaining their agreement is negligible because we have the highest exemption rate in Europe. The arrangement that was entered into is a legacy that we cannot escape from.
My hon. Friend made the interesting suggestion that we should apply the French system, under which £600 of one's gross income is allowed for tax if it is invested. My hon. Friend suggested a figure of £1,000 for the United Kingdom. But there are some practical difficulties. The law in France applies only if one invests the money on the stock exchange in a quoted company. My hon. Friend suggests that that should be done in the private business, and not through the stock exchange. The difficulty is that the proprietor of a business, because he would be allowed to invest in his own business, could draw out £17,000 of his salary, pay no tax on it, and put it back into the business. He could go on doing that. Applying such a provision not to quoted companies, as in France, but to close family businesses, would open up a massive area of evasion. However, if my hon. Friend can suggest a way in which that can be circumvented, I shall be very glad to hear from him.
My hon. Friend has raised many points with regard to burdens. I could talk for a long time about the changes that we have made affecting VAT and industrial development certificates, the sweeping away of ODPs, the ending of price and wage controls. changes in development land tax, the ability of the Council for Small Industries in Rural Areas to sell its freeholds, and the way in which the Department is selling the freeholds of its factories. A massive number of burdens have been lightened and a massive number of hurdles have been

pulled down.
Time is rushing on, and I do not want to fail to talk about the important points that my hon. Friend made about the loan guarantee scheme, which is one of a number of matters that we are examining in connection with the requirement of a business to have cash within it for its development.
My hon. Friend said that the banks had the money. At present they have not. They are caught in what is known as the corset, the restriction on their lending, so that at this time even if one were to agree that a loan guaratneee scheme was the right solution it would not be appropriate to tell the banks "While you cannot find enough money to lend to you rexisting customers, we want you to lend to others". I think that my hon. Friend would agree that a matter of timing would be involved.
There is another problem. I hope that my hon. Friend will take it away and come back to me with a solution. There is nothing to be gained if the banks simply say "We would have lent to this person, though we would not have been very keen, and it is on the margin but now that the Government will take the risk for us we shall put it in the loan guarantee scheme", because one would then have substitution rather than additional lending. I am sure that my hon. Friend and I would agree that our purpose, if one were to move along that road, would be to ensure that there was additional lending rather than substitution of lending which the banks would have done of their own volition.
It would not be true to say that a loan guarantee scheme is something about which we are about to make a pronouncement. It is one of a number of alternative ways of assisting the financing of small businesses that we are examining.
My hon. Friend drew attention to an important initiative that we have recently taken with a trial scheme, in which we find a firm that needs investment and bridge the gap between one of the big pension funds and the small business by using our counselling service to assess and monitor whether it is worth while. That means not that we have given an artificial advantage to the small business, but that we have removed the artificial disadvantage, in that it is as expensive for a big


institution to assess a £5,000 or £10,000 investment as it is—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Monday evening and

the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-five minutes to One o'clock.